
Class. 






Book 






THE 



ASTRONOIICO-THEOLOGICll 

LECTURES 



OF THE 



REV, ROBERT TAYLOR, B,A„ 

OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE ; MEMBER OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE 

OF SURGEONS, AUTHOR OF THE « DEVIL'S PULPIT," "DIEGESIS," 

"SYNTAGMA," &c. 



"It is those alone who love knowledge, who follow 
reason as the supreme guide, and seek truth as 
the great end, to whom I appeal." 



l*io pi: 

PUBLISHED BY CALYIN BLANCHAKD, 

76 Xassau Street. 

1851 



J31, 2775- 

•~7?z 



CONTENTS 



Page. 
Introduction v. 

L— Belief Not the Safe Side 7 

II. — The Resurrection of Lazarus 27 

II.— The Unjust Steward 45 

V.— The Devil. (Parti.) 63 

V.— The Devil. (Part II.) 80 

71. — The Rich Man and Lazarus 100 

Nil. — The Day of Temptation in the Wilderness. . . _ 116 

I I.— Ahab ; or, The Lying Spirit 135 

IX.— The Fall of Man 151 

X.— Noah 167 

XL — Abraham. - . 188 

XII.— Sarah 208 

CUE. — Melchisedec 224 

XVI.— The Lord. (Parti.) 239 

XV.— The Lord. (Part II.) 256 

XVI.— Moses 275 

XVII.— The Twelve Patriarchs • 294 

XVIIL— Who is the Lord ? (Parti.) .... 311 

XIX.— Who is the Lord ? (Part II.) . . . .326 

XX— Exodus. (Part I.) 341 

XXL— Exodus. (Part II.) 35 6 

XXII. — Aaron 37 2 

XXIII. — Miriam 39X 



INTRODUCTION, 



The origin and " spiritual" or allegorical meaning 
of " Scripture " have never before been so fully and 
faithfully set forth as by Robert Taylor. If super- 
naturalists have entirely mistaken this meaning, un- 
believers will here see that they have as widely erred 
in undervaluing it. 

The books composing the Bible were, for ages, in 
the hands of those who could, almost with impunity, 
alter them to suit their purposes. No wonder they 
are now so inconsistent, illogical, incoherent; so shorn 
of the characteristics of sane human writings, as to 
suggest an ultra-mundane origin, and give rise to com- 
mentaries, preachings, and ravings, still more bed- 
lamic. 

Some parts of the Bible are probably as old as 
any extant scriptures or writings; and therefore, not- 
withstanding their mutilated condition, a most valua- 
ble assistance to those who would thread the dark 
labyrinth of the past, and from the remotest discer- 
nible period, trace the history of our race, and the pro- 
gress of its mental, and even material development. 

ihe past, though not, as theologians would make 



VI INTRODUCTION. 

it, the aim of the present, is still, we must never 
forget, its parent; and with no more rationality can 
we give it the entire go-by, than the mariner can cut 
off the rudder of his ship. Shall we conclude the 
Bible unworthy our attention or study, or that we 
know all about it, in knowing that, as defined by 
cunning hypocrisy, or stark staring madness, it is un- 
true? Shall we substitute a vacant mind for a 
diseased one, and there rest ? 

To all not incurably afflicted with supematuralism, 
or stone-dead in negativism, or stolidly indifferent to, 
or incapable of, aught but mere animal existence, 
the Astronomico-Theological Lectures will be most 
welcome. That they are irrefutable, may be conclu- 
ded from the fact, that the only answer to them ever 
attempted, was, the imprisonment, for three years, 
for blasphemy, of their learned, accomplished, and 
witty author. The cowardly villains who fatten on 
human degradation, dared not grapple with the man's 
argument, but fastened their spiteful fangs on the 
man. 

Taylor never approved the title "Devil's Pulpit," 
which the London publisher has, nevertheless, affixed 
to all his lectures. He was for naming them, (as the 
American publisher has their second series) "Astro- 
nomico-Theological Lectures." 

Taylor's writings consist of ''The Diegesis," 
"Syntagma," "The Devil's Pulpit," and " The As- 
tronomico-Theological Lectures." In these, the curious 
scholar, the antiquary, the logician, the critic, the 



INTRODUCTION. VII 

philosopher, the humorist, will find ample satisfaction ; 
and free and independent thinkers will find it diffi- 
cult to treat themselves to such another " feast of 
reason." 

The mystery is solved ! The great secret is re- 
vealed ! The key to Christianity is found ! It opens 
the lock, despite the reluctant rust of ages, and all is 
plain as science ; clear and self-evident as mathe- 
matics. 

Mutilated, and wretchedly translated, its meaning 
perverted by knaves, and made utterly void by fools, 
the Bible has, nevertheless, a reality, (as we shall 
see,) which amply accounts for its wonderful 
power of endurance, superior to the poison of treachery, 
the smothering influence of folly, and the violent as- 
saults of blind, indiscriminating destructionists. 

Not 'til Taylor has shown what the "sacred" 
Scriptures do mean, does he let fly the shafts of his 
wit against the nonsense from which he has extrica- 
ted them. He sifts out the precious kernel, and then 
applies the flaming torch of his satire to the husks, 
despite the rage of the squealing swine, who still 
would feed on them. 

Rev. Kobert Taylor graduated at St. Johns Col- 
lege, Cambridge; was Bachelor of Arts, Member of 
the Royal College of Surgeons, (having studied under 
Sir Artley Cooper) and, till his opinions severed the 
connection, an ordained minister of the Church of Eng- 
land. 

New-York, 1857. B. 



ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES, 



L— BELIEF NOT THE SAFE SIDE. 

" Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat and swal- 
low a camel." — Mathew xxiii. 24. 

The gentlemen who distribute religious tracts, the 
general body of dissenting preachers, and almost all 
persons engaged in the trade of religion, imagine them- 
selves to have a mighty advantage against infidels, 
upon the strength of that last and reckless argument, 
— that whether the Christian religion be true or false, 
there can be no harm in believing ; and that belief is, 
at any rate, the safe side. 

Now to say nothing of this old Popish argument, 
which a sensible man must see is the very essence of 
Popery, and would oblige us to believe all the absurdi- 
ties and nonsense in the world, inasmuch as if there 
be no harm in believing, and there be some harm and 
danger in not believing, the more we believe, the 
better ; and all the argument necessary for any reli- 
gion whatever, would be, that it shoujd frighten us 
out of our wits ; the more terrible, the more true ; and 
it would be our duty to become the converts of that 
religion, whatever it might be, whose priests could 
swear the loudest, and damn and curse the fiercest. 

But I am here, to grapple with this Popery in 
disguise, this wolfish argument in sheepish clothing, 
upon scriptural ground, and on scriptural ground 



8 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES 

only; taking the scriptures of the Old and New 
Testament, for this argument's sake, to be of divine 
authority. 

The question proposed is, ' Whether is the believer 
or the unbeliever the more likely to be saved, taking 
the scriptures to be of divine authority V And I stand 
here on this divine authority, to prove that the unbeliev- 
er is the more likely to be saved : that unbelief, and not 
belief, is the safe side ; and that a man is more likely to 
be damned for believing the gospel, and because of his 
having believed it, then for rejecting and despising it, 
as I do. 

I propose to sift this question, with more careful 
diligence, and to bring all its merits before you, with 
the utmost fairness, candor, and truth, taking words 
and meanings in their most ordinary acceptation, sub- 
mitting the result to the judgments of your own 
minds, no judgment of mine withstanding. Let your 
good patience hear, — let such conviction as shall 
follow on your patient hearing, decide. 

But, if such a patient hearing be more than good 
Christians be minded to give us, when thus I advance 
to meet them on their own ground, their impatience 
and intolerance itself will supply the evidence and 
demonstration of the fact, that, after all, they dare 
not stand to the text of their own book ; that it is not 
the Bible that they go by, nor God whom they regard : 
but that they want to be God-a-mighties themselves, 
and would have us take their words for God's word: 
you must read 'it as they read it, and understand it as 
they understand it ! you must l skip, and go on] just 
where a hard word comes in the way of the sense 
they choose to put upon't : you must believe the book 
contains what you see with your own eyes that it 
does not contain : you must shut your eyes, and not 
see what it does contain : or you'll be none the nearer 



BELIEF NOT THE SAFE SIEE. V 

the mark of their liking, though you should, ' from 
the table of your memory,' wipe away all trivial 
fond records, 

All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past, 
That youth and observation copied there, 
And God's commandment, it alone should live 
Within the book and volume of your brain, 
Unmixed with baser matter. 

And though you should be ' a scholar, and a ripe 
and good one,' with all advantages that education and 
learning can confer on man, as familiar with the text 
of the original Greek, as with your mother tongue ; 
the most illiterate bungling ass, the smutched artificer, 
the dirty kern, the cobbler from his lapstone, the 
weaver from his loom, having once given his mind to 
religion, will expect that your understanding should 
submit to his ; and that you should receive not 
merely the text he quotes, but whatever sense he 
choses to understand, or to misunderstand, from it. 
So that the Sun itself is not more apparent in the 
Heavens, than is the fact, that religion is nothing 
more than the moody melancholy of an overbearing 
and tyrannical disposition ; and your religious man, 
nothing more than an usurping, saucy knave, who 
wants to be your master. 

• How calm and sweet the victories of life ! 
How terrorless the triumph of the grave ! 
How ludicrous the priest's dogmatic roar ; 
The weight of his exterminating curse, 
How light ! and his affected charity, 
To suit the pressure of the changing times, 
With palpable deceit ! but for thy aid, 
Religion ! but for thee, prolific fiend, 
That peoplest earth with demons, hell with men, 
And heaven with slaves !' 

Shell y's Queen Mat. 

Hear the pulpit, Sirs ! and their word of God, to 
be sure, it is all joy and peace in believing, — ' mild, 



10 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUKES. 

as blest voices, uttering praise, — soft, as the down 
upon the ring-dove's breast — sweet, as the south wind 
that breathes upon a bank of violets, stealing and 
giving odours.' Hear itself, Sirs ! the gospel itself; 
uncommented on by any gloss of mine, and marvel ! 

' The word of God is quick and powerful, and 
sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to 
the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the 
joints and marrow.' Heb. iv. 12. What is hypocrisy? 
What is deceit ? If greater hypocrisy and deceit can 
be, or be conceived, than that men should put heaven 
in their shop- windows, when hell is in the shop? That 
they should cry 'peace! peace I when there is no 
peace;' and call their gospel 'glad tidings of great 
joy,' which, when we come to look into't, presents de- 
scriptions of grief, and woe, and pain, the bare imagina- 
tion of which doth blanch the cheek of health to 
ashy paleness, and ' makes the seated heart knock at 
the ribs against the use of nature.' 

1 Eegions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace 
And rest can never dwell ; hope never comes 
That comes to all ; but torture without end, 
And pain of inextinguishable fire 
Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed 
With ever-burning sulphur unconsumed.' 

And are these 'glad tidings of great joy?' Is 
the liability which Christian men stand in, if the gos- 
pel be true, of being infinitely and eternally miserable, 
so tempting as to tempt a man to wish that it may be 
true; when that liability, if the gospel be true, and 
the scriptures, from Genesis to Revelations, be of 
divine authority, impends more over the believer than 
the unbeliever ; and that the unbeliever is more likely 
to be saved in consequence of his unbelief, and by 
virtue of his unbelief; and the believer more likely to 
be lost and damned to all eternity, because he did 
believe, and in consequence of his having believed ? 



BFLIEF NOT THE SAFE SIDE. 11 

Taking the authority 'of scripture, for this argu- 
ment's sake, to be decisive, I address the believer who 
would give himself airs of superiority, would chuckle 
in an imaginary safety in believing, and presume to 
threaten the unbeliever as being in a worse case, or 
more dangerous plight, than he. ' Hast thou no fears 
for thy presumptuous self? when on the showing of 
thine own book, the safety (if safety there be) is all 
on the unbelieving side?' When for any one text that 
can be produced, seeming to hold out any advantage 
or safety in believing, we can produce two, in which 
the better hope is held out to the unbeliever f For 
only one apparent exhortation to believe, we can pro- 
duce two forbiddances to believe, and many threaten- 
ings of God's vengeance to, and for the crime and folly 
of believing ? To this proof I proceed by showing 
you: 

1st. What the denunciations of God's vengeance 
are : with no comment of mine, but in the words of 
the text itself. 

2d. That these dreadful denunciations are threat- 
ened to believers ; and that they are not threatened to 
unbelievers: and 

3d. That all possible advantages and safety, which 
believing could confer on any man, are likely, and 
more likely to be conferred on the unbeliever, than on 
the believer. 

That the danger of the believer is so extreme, 
that no greater danger can possibly be. 

1st. What are the denunciations of God's ven- 
geance? 'There are,' (says the holy Revelation xiv. 
10) 'who shall drink of the wine of the wrath of 
God, which is poured out without mixture into the 
cup of his indignation, and shall be tormented with 
fire and brimstone, and the smoke of their torment 
ascendeth up for ever and ever; and they have no 



12 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

rest day nor night.' There's 'glad tidings of great 
joy' for you. The Christian may get over the terror 
of this denunciation by the selfish and ungenerous 
chuckle of his 'Ah! well, these were very wicked 
people, and must have deserved their doom ; it need 
not alarm us : it doesen't apply to us.' But good- 
hearted men would rather say, 'It does apply. We 
cannot be indifferent to the misery of our fellow- 
creatures. The self-same Heaven that frowns on 
them, looks lowering upon us.' And who were they ? 
and what was their offence ? Was it Atheism ? was 
it Deism ? was it Infidelity ? No ! it was for church 
and chapel-going; it was for adoring, believing and 
worshipping. They worshipped the beast: I know 
not what beast they worshipped ; but I know that if 
you go into any of our churches and chapels at this 
day, you will find them worshipping the Lamb ; and 
if worshipping a lamb, be not most suspiciously like 
worshipping a beast, you may keep the color in your 
cheeks, while mine are blanched with fear. The un- 
believer only can be absolutely safe from this danger. 
He only who has no religion at all, is sure not to be 
of the wrong religion. He who worships neither 
God nor Devil, is sure not to mistake one of those 
gentlemen for the other. 

But will it be pretended, that these are only 
metaphors of speech, that the thing said is not the 
thing that's meant Why, then, they are very ugly 
metaphors. And what is saying that which you don't 
mean, and meaning the contrary to what you say, 
but LYING? 

But if the Christian hath a right to say that there 
are some parts, and even many parts of Scripture, 
which are not to be taken as strictly and literally 
true; but which must be understood as metaphors 
and allegories: what right can he have to dispute our 



BEEIEF NOT THE SAFE SIDE. 13 

right to maintain, that the whole gospel story is a 
metophor and an allegory from first to last ; that 
there is not a word of truth in it: that it was not 
written to pass for truth ; but only as a vehicle to 
convey moral instruction, after the well-known Orien- 
tal style ; a fable with a moral to it : of which the 
duller wit of those western nations forgot the moral, 
and ran away with the fable ? 

And what worse can become of the Infidel, who 
makes it the rule of his life 'to hear and speak the 
plain and simple truth,' than of the Christian, whose 
religion itself is a system of metaphors and allegories, 
of double meanings, of quirks and quiddities, in 
dread defiance of the text that warns him, that, ' All 
liars shall have their part in the lake which burnetii 
with fire and brimstone. Rev. xxi. 8. 

Is it a parable that a man may merely entertain 
his imagination withal, and think no more on't — 
though not a word be hinted about a parabolical sig- 
nification, and the text stands in the mouth of him, 
who, we are told, was the truth itself? And he it is 
who brought life and immortality to light, that hath 
described in the 6th of Luke, such an immortality as 
that of one who was a sincere believer, — a son of 
Abraham, who took the Bible for the rule of his life ; 
and was anxious to promote the salvation of his 
brethren, yet found for himself no saviour, no salva- 
tion ; but, ' In Hell he lifted up his eyes, being in 
torment, and saith ; Father Abraham, have mercy on 
me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his 
finger in water, and cool my tongue, for I am torment- 
ed in this flame.' But that request was refused. 
' Then he said, I pray thee, therefore, Father, that 
thou wouldst send him to my father's house ; for I 
have five brethren, that he may testify unto them, lest 
they also come to this place of torment.' But that 

1* 



14 ASTKOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

request was refused. There's ' glad tidings of great 
joy' for you. 

That the believer's danger of coming or going 
into that place of torment is so great, that greater 
cannot possibly be : and that his belief will stand him 
in no stead at all, but make his plight a thousand 
times worse than if he had not been a believer ; and 
that unbelief is the safer side, — Christ himself being 
judge, — I quote no words but his to prove. 

Is the believer concerned to save his soul, then 
shall he most assuredly be damned for being so con- 
cerned : for Christ hath said, ' Whosoever will save 
his soul shall lose it.' Mathew xvi. 25.* 

Is the believer a complete beggar ? if he be not 
so, — if he hath a rag that he doth call his own, he 
will be damned to all eternity. For Christ hath said, 
'Whosoever he be of you who forsake th not all tnat 
he hath, he cannot be my disciple.' Luke xvi. 33. 

Is the believer a rich man? and dreams he of 
going to Heaven? 'It is easier for a camel to go 
through the eye of a needle.' Mathew xix. 24. Is 
he a man at all, then he cannot be saved : for Christ 
hath said : ' Thou believest that there is one God ;* 
saith St. James, ' Thou dost well, the devils also 
believe and tremble.' James ii. 19. And so much 
good, and no more, than comes to damned spirits in 
the flames of Hell, is all the good that ever did or can 
come of believing ; ' For though thou hast all faith, so 
that thou couldst remove mountains,' saith St. Paul, 
' It should profit thee nothing.' 1 Cor. xiii. 2. 

Well, then ! let the good Christian try what say- 
ing his prayers will do for him : this is the good that 

* It is to be regretted that Taylor has quoted this text, as his 
argument was all sufficient without it. The word ipv^y, here ren- 
dered smd,may also mean life, as in the common version.— Publisher. 



BELIEF NOT THE SAFE SIDE. 15 

they'll do for liim ; and he hath Christ's own word to 
comfort him in't. 'He shall receive the greater 
damnation.' Luke xx. 47, 

Well, then, since believing will not save him, 
since faith will not save him, since prayer will 
not save him, but all, so positively makes 
things all the worse, and none the better, here's 
one other chance for him. Let him go and re- 
ceive the Sacrament, the most comfortable Sacra- 
ment, you know, ' of the body and blood of Christ ;' 
remembering, as all good communicants should, 
1 that he is not worthy so much as to gather up the 
crumbs that fall from that table.' ' Truth, Lord ! 
But the dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from their 
master's table!' O what happy dogs. But let those 
dogs remember, that it is also truth, that ' He that 
eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh 
damnation to himself.' 1 Cor. xvi. 29. what pre- 
cious eating and drinking. 

' My God ! and is thy table spread ; 
And doth thy cup with love o'erflow ? 
Thither be all thy children led, 
And let them all thy sweetness know.' 

That table is a snare, that cup is deadly poison, 
that bread shall send thy soul to hell. 

Well, then, try again, believer: perhaps you had 
better join the Missionary Society, and subscribe to 
send these glad tidings of these blessed privileges, 
and this jolly eating and drinking to the Heathen. 

Why, then, you have Christ's own assurance, that 
when you shall have made one proselyte, you shall 
have just done him the kindness of making him twofold 
more the child of Hell than yourself. Matt, xxiii. 15. 

Is the believer liable to the ordinary gusts of pas- 
sion, and in a passion shall he drop the hasty word 



16 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUKES. 

4 thou fool ?' for that one word, ' he shallbe in danger 
of Hell-fire.' Matt. v. 22.* 

Nay, Sirs, this isn't the worst of the believer's 
danger. Would he but keep his legs and arms to- 
gether, and spare his own eyes and limbs, he doth by 
that very mercy to himself damn his eyes and limbs, — ■ 
and hath Christ's assurance that it would have been 
profitable for him rather to have plucked out his eyes, 
and chopped off his limbs, and so to have wriggled 
and groped his way through the ' straight gate and 
the narrow way that leadethunto life,' than having two 
eyes and two arms, or two legs, to be cast into Hell, 
into the fire that never shall be quenched, where their 
• worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.' 
Markix. 43. 

Well, then ! will the believer say, — what were all 
the miracles and prophecies of both the Old and the 
New Testament for f — those unquestionable miracles, 
and clearly accomplished prophecies, if it were not 
that men should believe ? Why, absolutely, they were 
the very arguments appointed by God himself to 
show us that men should not believe ; but that damna- 
tion should be their punishment if they did believe. 
' To the law and the testimony', Sirs ! These are the 
very words : Of miracles, saith God's word, 'They are 
the spirits of devils, that work miracles.' Rev. xvi. 14. 
And it is the Devil who • deceiveth them which dwell on 
the earth, by means of those miracles which he hath 
power to do.' Rev. xiii. 14. So much for miracles. 

Is it on the score of prophets and of prophecies, 
then, that you will take believing to be the safe side ? 
Then, 'thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of 
Israel, the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests 
bear rule by their means.' Jer. v. 31. 'The prophet 

* Evo^oc erGCueig rrjvyeevav ~ov irvpog 



BELIEF NOT THE SAFE SIDE. 17 

is a fool: the spiritual man is mad.' Hosea i. 7. 
' Tims saith the Lord of Hosts, hearken not unto the 
prophets.' Jer. xxiii. 15. 'O, Israel, thy prophets 
are like the foxes of the desert.' Ezekiel xiii. 4.' 
They lie unto thee.' Jer. xiv. 14. 'And they shall 
be tormented day and night for ever and ever.' Rev.' 
xx. 10. ' And the punishment of the prophet shall 
be even as the punishment of him that seeketh unto 
him/ Ezekiel xiv. 10. 

Nay, more, then, it is, when God hath determined 
to damn men, that he, in every instance, causeth them 
to become believers, and to have faith in divine 
Revelation, in order that they may be damned. 
Believers, and none but believers, becoming liable to 
damnation ; believers, and none but believers, being 
capable of committing that unpardonable sin against 
the Holy Ghost, which hath never forgiveness, 
neither in this world, nor in that which is to come. 
'Whereas, all other kinds of blasphemy shall be for- 
given unto men, and all sorts of blasphemy where- 
with soever they shall blaspheme.' But there is no 
forgiveness for believers. Mark iii. 28. For it is 
written, ' for this cause God shall send them strong 
delusion, that they should believe a lie : that they all 
might be damned.' 2 Thess. ii. 11. If, then, the 
evidence of the Christian religion were as strong as 
you please, where would be your evidence to show 
that that evidence itself was not strong delusion ? 
And if God doth send men strong delusion, I guess 
the delusion is likely to be strong enough. 

So when it was determined by God that the 
wicked Aliab should perish, the means to bring him 
to destruction, both of body and soul, was to make 
him become a believer. I offer no comment of my 
own on words so sacred ; but those are the words: 
1 Hear thou, therefore, the word of the Lord. I saw 



18 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

the Lord sitting upon his throne, and all the hosts of 
Heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his 
left. And the Lord said, Who shall persuade Ahab 
that he may go up and fall at Ramoth Gilead ? and 
one said on this manner, and another said on that 
manner. And there stood forth a spirit and stood 
before the Lord, and said — I will persuade him. And 
the Lord said unto him, Wherewith ? And he said, I 
will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth 
of all his prophets. And he said, thou shalt persuade 
him, and prevail also. Go forth and do so. Now, there- 
fore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the 
mouth of all thy prophets.' 1 Kings xxii. 22. There 
were 400 of 'em ; they were ' the goodly fellowship 
of the prophets' for you ; 

All of them inspired by the spirit from on high, 
And all of them lying as fast as they could lie. 

So much for getting on the safe side by believing. 
Had Ahab been an infidel, he would have saved his 
soul alive. As it was, we may address him in the 
words of St. Paul to just such another fool; — 'King 
Ahab, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou 
believest ; but not better than I know, that, for that 
very belief, fell slaughter on thy soul : and where 
thou soughtest to be saved by believing, it was by 
believing thou wert damned.' 

So when Elijah had succeeded in converting the 
450 worshippers of Baal, who had been safe enough 
while they were Infidels, and they began crying ' the 
Lord He is God, the Lord He is God :' the moment 
they got into the right faith, they found themselves in 
the wrong box ; and the prophet, by the command of 
God, put a stop to their Lord-Godding, by cutting 
their throats for 'em. « Elijah brought them down to 
the brook of Kishon, and slew them there.' 1 Kings 



BELIEF NOT THE SAFE SIDE. 19 

xviii. 40. He brought them to the brook, ye know, 
for the convenience of baptising and killing them at 
the same time. I suppose they were on the safe side of 
the brook. O, what a blessed thing, ye see, to be con- 
verted to the true faith. 

Thus all the sins and crimes that have been com- 
mitted in the world, and all God's judgments upon sin 
and sinners, have been the consequence of religion, 
and faith, and believing. 

What was the first sin committed in the world ? 
It was believing. Had our great mother Eve not been 
a believing, credulous fool, she would not have been 
in the transgression. Who was the first reverend di- 
vine that began preaching about God and immortality? 
It was the Devil. What was the first lie that was 
ever told, the very damning and damnable lie ? It 
was the lie told to make folks believe that they would 
not be dead when they were dead ; that they should 
not surely die, but that they should be as gods, and 
live in a future state of existence. When God him- 
self hath declared, that there is no future state of ex- 
istence : that ' Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou 
return.' Who is it, then, that prefers believing in the 
Devil rather than in God, but the believer. And from 
whom is the hope of a future state derived, but from 
the father of lies ?— the Devil. But— 

If, in defiance of so positive a declaration of Al- 
mighty God, men will have it that there is a future 
state of existence after death, who are they who shall 
sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the 
Kingdom of Heaven, but unbelievers ; let 'em come 
" from the north, from the south, from the east, or 
from the west ?" And who are they that shall be cast 
out, but believers, * the children of the kingdom ?' 

As St. Peter very charitably calls them, * cursed 
children.' 2 Peter ii. 14. That is, I suppose, children 



20 ASTEONOMICO -THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

with beards ; children that never grew to sense enough 
to put away childish things, but did in gawky man- 
hood, like new-born babes, desire the pure milk and 
lollipop of the gospel. ' For of such is the Kingdom 
of Heaven.' 

And who are they whom Christ will set upon his 
right hand, and to whom he will say, ' Come, ye 
blessed of my Father,' but unbelievers, who never 
troubled their minds about religion, and never darkened 
the doors of a gospel-shop ? But who are they to whom 
he will say, ' Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, 
prepared for the devil and his angels,' but believers, 
every one of them believers, chapel-going folks, Christ's 
blood-men, and incorrigible bigots, that had been both- 
ering him all their days with their ' Lord, Lord V to 
come off at last with no better reward of their faith 
than that he will " protest unto them, I never knew ye." 

One text there is, and only one, against ten thou- 
sand of a contrary significancy, which, being garbled 
and torn from its context, seems, for a moment, to 
give the advantage to the believer : the celebrated 16th 
chapter of Mark, ver. 16 : ' He that believeth, and is 
baptised, shall be saved ; but he that believeth not, 
shall be damned.' But little will this serve the deceit- 
ful hope of the Christian, for it is immediately added : 
1 And these signs shall follow them that believe ; in 
my name shall they cast out devils ; they shall speak 
with new tongues ; they shall take up serpents ; and 
if they drink any deadly things, it shall not hurt them ; 
they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall reco- 
ver.' Can the Christian show these signs, or any of 
them ? Will he dare to take up a serpent, or drink 
prussic acid ? If he hesitate, he is not a believer, and 
his profession of belief is a falsehood. Let belief con- 
fer what privilege it may, he hath no part nor lot in 
the matter : the threat which he denounces against In- 



BELIEF NOT THE SAFE SIDE. 21 

fidels hangs over himself, and he hath no sign of sal- 
vation to show. 

Believing the gospel, then, (or rather, I should say, 
professing to believe it, for I need not tell yon that 
there's a great many more professing to believe, than 
believing), instead of making a man the more likely to 
be saved, doubles his danger of damnation, inasmuch 
as Christ hath said, that ' the last state of that man 
shall be worse than the first.' Luke xi. 26. And his 
holy apostle, Peter, addeth, ' It would have been bet- 
ter for them not to have known the way (2 Peter ii, 21) 
of righteousness.' The sin of believing makes all other 
sins that a man can commit so much the more heinous 
and offensive in the sight of God, inasmuch as they 
are sins against light and knowledge : and ' the ser- 
vant who knew his Lord's will, and did it not, he shall 
be beaten with many stripes.' Luke xii. 47. While 
unbelief is not only innocent in itself, but so highly 
pleasing to Almighty God, that it is represented as the 
cause of his forgiveness of things which otherwise 
would not be forgiven. Thus St. Paul, who had been 
a blasphemer, a persecutor, an injurious, assures us 
that it was for this cause he obtained mercy, ' because 
he did it ignorantly in unbelief.' 1 Tim. i. 13. Had 
he been a believer, he would as surely have been dam- 
ned as his name was Paul. And 'tis the gist of his 
whole argument, and the express words of the xith chap- 
ter of the Epistle to the Romans, that 'God included 
them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon 
all.' It is said of Abraham himself, that ' he stag- 
gered not at the promises of God, through unbelief.' 
Romans iv. 20. It being nothing but belief that sets 
men staggering. And when the whole Jewish nation 
became unbelievers, God was so pleased with them for 
it, that he actually saved the whole Gentile world in 
compliment to them : they have been the most money- 



22 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

getting people ever since. And it is expressly declar- 
ed, that the Gentiles obtained mercy through their un- 
belief. Romans xi. 30. Unbelief' being the essential 
qualification and recommendation to God's mercy, not 
without good reason was it the pious father of the 
boy that had the Devil in him, when he had need of 
Christ's mercy, and knew that unbelief would be the 
best title to it, cried out and said with tears, ' Lord, I 
believe, help thou mine unbelief.' Mark ix. 24. 

While the apostles themselves, who were most im- 
mediately near and dear to Christ, no more believing 
the gospel than I do : and for all they have said and 
preached about it, they never believed it themselves, 
as Christ told 'em that they hadn't so much faith as a 
grain of mustard-seed. And the Evangelist, John, 
bears them record, to their immortal honor, that, 
6 though Christ had done so many miracles among 
them, yet believed they not.' John xii. 37. 

And the same divine authority assures us, that 
' neither did his brethren believe in him.' John vii. 5. 
Which, then, is ' the safe side,' Sirs, on the showing 
of the record itself ? On the unbelieving side, the in- 
fidel stands in the glorious company of the apostles, 
in the immediate family of Christ, and hath no fear ; 
while the believer doth as well, and no better than the 
devils in Hell, who believe and tremble. While the 
first believers of Christianity — the martyrs, as they 
would pretend to be, who are said to have sealed the 
truth with their blood, had the seal of God's provi- 
dence upon them — that it was a lie that they sealed 
with their blood; for how could God's providence ex- 
press his displeasure and indignation against believers 
more strongly than by bringing them to a bad end ? 

If there were in reason any danger or guilt in be- 
ing an unbeliever, if it could be thought or feared for 
a moment that God would punish a man for being an 



BELIEF NOT THE SAFE SIDE. 23 

Infidel ; that is, for the mere error of his thought, if 
an error it be — the mere mistake of the mind, made 
by God himself liable to be mistaken ; what chance, 
what hope, what dream of salvation, could exist for 
the believer ? The chance of salvation is a chance not 
worth having; it is a madmans dream. It is a hope 
but as of a man who is to be hanged. It is a gal- 
lows hope : * For if the righteous scarcely be saved, 
where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear V 

But let not the sinner be cheated by the belief* that 
belief will keep him safe from any denunciation threat- 
ened against unbelief. His very belief itself is found- 
ed upon unbelief. He cannot maintain his notion of 
being accountable to God, and that he shall exist in 
a future state, without flying in the face of his own 
Bible, making it a nose of wax, twisting it to his own 
conceit, taking the part he likes, and in the sense he 
likes it, but rejecting what likes not him. (Does the 
Infidel do more than this ?) Does his brain-sick vani- 
ty lead him to think that he is of so much consequence, 
that his every thought, word and deed is registered in 
Heaven, and that an accusing angel flits up to Hea- 
ven's chancery to insult the majesty of God, with an 
account how a beggar's callet stole a cabbage-net ? 

And doth he not, by that very vanity, as much 
trample upon the word of God as ever did an Infidel, 
where that word hath said, ' Is it any pleasure to the 
Almighty that thou art righteous ? Or is it a gain to 
him that thou makest thy way perfect.' Job xxii. 3. 
' And if thou sinnest, what dost thou unto him ? or, if 
thy transgressions be multiplied, what dost thou unto 
him ?' Job xxxv. 6. 

Dreams the crackt fool of his superiority to the 
brute creation, and that when he dies there shall be 
not as sheer and final an end of him as of them? And 
is he not himself an Infidel and an unbeliever in that 



24 ASRTONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

very text of God's words, which saith, and which hath 
the testimony of his own reason, and of his own sen- 
ses, and of all nature, and the experience of all time, 
and of all places, and of all men in all the world, in 
attestation of what it saith? ' That which befalleth 
the sons of men, befalleth beasts ; even one thing be- 
falleth them. As the one dieth, so dieth the other: 
yea, they have all one breath : so that a man hath no 
pre-eminence about a beast : all go unto one place : all are 
of the dust: and all turn to dust again.' Eccles. iii. 12. 

Well, then, Sirs ! What comes of their appeal to 
reason, as to belief being the safe side ? What comes 
of their appeal to scripture, as to belief being the safe 
side? Their ground fails them on every side. 

In what, then, originated the mighty hue and cry 
against unbelief, and the exceeding bitterness of the 
saints against unbelievers ? How comes the free ex- 
ercise of our thoughts, which should be as feee as air, and 
our free speech as free as our free thoughts, to be 
so grievous to the clergy, from the proud prelate who 
swells in the throne of a cathedral to the ragamuffin 
that sweeps the hayloft of God a'mighty's second wife, 
Mother Soapsuds, and her little Shiloh? It spoils 
their trade : it crosses the paths of their ambition. 

Should men become unbelievers, and act and reason 
like men, 

1 Othello's occupation's gone !' 

The craft, Sirs, the most gainful craft going, — the 
craftiest of all crafts, would be in danger : the craft 
that makes men fools to make them slaves, and prom- 
ises them a heaven of happiness to reconcile them to 
a world of misery. All the tricks of all the religion 
that ever was in the world, on the part of those who 
have not themselves been the dupes and tools of oth- 
ers, have never been aught else than a scheming, gree- 
dy, grasping at unrighteous gain, and a tyrannous 



ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 25 

usurpation of an undue influence over the minds that 
could be easily cajoled and terrified. 

The whole argument, then, of terror and danger, 
which the priests denounce against unbelievers, is the 
danger and terror to themselves. Their ' He that be- 
lieveth not shall be damned,' when interpreted to its 
real meaning, means no more than d — n them that 
don't deal at our shop. 

And, as you value real happiness, and solid, sub- 
stantial peace of mind, don't go to their shops, avoid 
them as you would a pestilence. In infidelity, in un- 
belief (let me not be misunderstood), in that entire 
scorn, that total rejection, contempt and hatred of the 
gospel, which is my pride and boast to exhibit to the 
world, you will enjoy a reality of safety which the 
dupes of faith do not dream of. You will be safe 
from those imaginary terrors that alarm the guilty 
mind : you will be safe from those chimerical dreams of 
a kingdom of heaven, like unto a grain of mustard- 
seed, that you must get through a needle's eye first, — 
the straight gate, the narrow way, of which you have 
to be sure the blessed assurance, that if you should 
seek to enter in you should not be able. You will be 
safe from those bad feelings and angry passions which 
you see dim the faces of religious people. You will 
be safe from that bad heart, and remorseless and vin- 
dictive temper, by which alone a man could bear to 
believe in such accursed trash as all false religion is. 
By rejecting religion altogether, you will save your- 
selves from that liability to madness, and that cracki- 
ness and confusion about the brains, which you see 
with your own eyes, that all religious people are so 
peculiarly subject to. I speak this upon my right to 
have an opinion upon this subject, as being, as I am, 
a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, and hav- 
ing made the structure and philosophy of the human 

2 



26 BELIEF NOT THE SAFE SIDE. 

brain matter of my particular study. I speak what I 
do know, and testify what I have seen. Eeligion is 
the poison of the brain : by rejecting religion altoge- 
ther, you will be safe from all cares and anxities, but 
for your well-being and well-doing in life ; and in death, 
without a fear, without a doubt, without a wish, will 
resign your being into the hands of the good and gra- 
cious Father of us all. In a word, to be an Infidel is 
to be on the safe side ; to be an Infidel is the highest 
style, the noblest privilege, ths greatest happiness of 
man. Let me die the death of an Infidel, and let my 
last end be like his. And down, I say, down with 

PKIESTCKAFT. 

Note. — In the foregoing Lecture, it will be observed, Taylor 
does not enter on, but prepares his readers for, his great topic, Astro- 
Theology. He opens the field for scientific research, by untrammel- 
ing the mind from the craven fear that reasoning may be lesi ! safe 
than believing, and drives dark mysticism naked from its last '' re- 
fuge of lies."— Publisher. 



II— THE RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS. 

JOHN XI. 



The subject on which I would now engage your 
attention, the resurrection of Lazarus, bears a solemn, 
serious, and affecting character : and it admits, there- 
fore, of being treated with corresponding seriousness 
on our part. I have purposely chosen it, in order to 
supply a demonstration to the public, that my manner 
of treating a subject has ever been suitable to the na- 
ture of that subject ; and that I have only used the 
arguments of burlesque and ridicule on such subjects 
as would not admit of a serious consideration. I 
pledge myself now to surrender every argument I 
have ever adduced against the evidences of Christian- 
ity, and to admit that all such arguments have been a 
tissue of sophistication, foolery, and falsehood, if any 
argument which I shall now adduce shall, in the judg- 
ment of any good and conscientious man, admit of a 
more fair, more serious, or less offensive way of being 
stated by any man on earth. I solemnly call on every 
professing Christian who would wish to persuade his 
fellow-men that the faith of Christ is ' worthy of all 
men to be received,' to submit the things of which he 
would have men be persuaded, to the test of a fair 
and impartial examination. 

Let him reject that which shall appear to be false : 
let him embrace that which shall appear to be tine : 



28 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

let him ' prove all things, and hold fast that which is 
good :' let him treat his fellow-man with the respect 
with which he would wish to be treated: and accept 
with kindness the kindest offer man can make to man. 
— c Come now and let us reason together.' 

It is only in the gospel according to St. John, in 
the chapter which I have now read, and in four dis- 
gregated sentences in the chapter which follows, that 
there is any mention of this miracle. ' 1. Lazarus 
was one of them which sat at the table with him. 2. 
Much people came that they might see Lazarus also, 
whom he had raised from the dead. 3. But the chief 
priests consulted, that they might put Lazarus also to 
death, because that by reason of him many of the Jews 
went away, and believed on Jesus. 4. The people, 
therefore, that was with him when he called Lazarus 
out of his grave, and raised him from the dead, bear 
record.' 

The name of Lazarus occurs nowhere else but in 
a parable which stands as an episode in the 16th of 
Luke's gospel, where it is the name of a beggar, and 
used as applicable to any infirm, or sick and poor per- 
son, as Cruden gives the derivative signiflcancy of the 
word Lazarus, the help of God — that is, one whom 
God alone can relieve. 

It must occur to every mind capable of dealing 
honestly with its own faculties, that it is at least won- 
derful that the other evangelists, though they have 
each their distinctive narratives of far less striking and 
consequential miracles, have not taken notice of this 
— while the epistles of the New Testament abound 
with expressions which must necessarily be false if 
this miracle were true. For absolute contradictions, I 
hope, cannot both be true. It cannot be true, as St. Paul 
hatli said, that ' Now is Christ risen from the dead, 
and become the first fruits of them that slept :' if that 



THE RESURRECTION OP LAZARUS. 29 

be true, which St. John hath reported, that Lazarus 
had arisen from the dead before him. 

Neither can the great inference of the Christian's 
ground of faith and hope, on the score of the resurrec- 
tion of Jesus, be at all tenable, if any other person, or 
many other persons, had risen as well as he. 

But weighing this stupendous miracle by its own 
intrinsic and internal character, and independently of 
all apparent inferences and consequences which must 
follow from it : 

It is either a history, or it is an allegory. If it 
be a history, it must be either true or false, and the 
moral character of the historian must stand or fall with 
it. If it be an allegory, it is not in the predications 
which admit of being either true or false. It can only 
be considered as a clever allegory, or a bungling one ; 
and the intellectual character of the allegorist is all that 
is implicated in the issue. 

If any thing which was really set forth, and in- 
tended to pass on the belief of mankind, as substan- 
tially and historically true, shall be found to bear in 
itself, when so considered, internal marks of inconsis- 
tency, improbability, and falsehood ; no other possible 
conclusion can be just, than that its author must be a 
false man. If anything which was only intended as a 
poetical fiction or allegory, hath been set forth so clum- 
sily, as to confound the proper congruities of history 
and fiction : the onlv conclusion to be drawn is, that its 
author is a bad poet. 

Thus, Dr. Johnson's 'Kasselas' is good allegory, 
because no real personages are, in that poem, confound- 
ed with imaginary ones ; no facts mixed up with fic- 
tions. • Sir Walter Scott's novels are bad allegories ; 
because, persons who never existed are represented as 
acting with persons who did ; and real occurrences are 
blended with imaginary ones. But nobody impeaches 



30 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

the moral character of either of these great men. The 
case would be wholly different, if the compositions of 
Johnson or Scott were put in challenge of our "belief 
as histories. 

That I may incur no appearance of levity, or 
intended offence to the conscience of any sincere be- 
liever, I adopt not only the sentiments, but confine 
myself to the words, of as sincere a believer, and as 
conscientious a Christian, as any man on earth, who 
4 professes and calls himself a Christian,' can be known 
or thought to be. 

'This miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus, of 
Bethany,' says this faithful and honest minister of 
Christ, 4 has many strong marks upon it of fictitious 
falsehood, but not one single feature of probability be- 
longing to it. For first, Lazarus is represented as 
being our Lord's particularly beloved friend; and if 
any one man had been so preferred by him, it seems 
impossible that the man himself, and, above all, the 
miraculous restoration to life again, should not have 
been repeatedly mentioned by St. Luke, in both his 
histories ; yet St. Luke is so far from suggesting to 
us that Jesus had any such friend, that he informs us, 
that when he was told that his mother and brethren 
were inquiring for him, he answered, that his nearest 
and dearest friends and relations were his disciples, 
who heard the word of God and obeyed it. 

4 Secondly, our Lord repeatedly declared, that no 
man was worthy of him, who did not forsake family, 
friends, and all that he had, for his sake and the gos- 
pels. Yet Lazarus never forsook his family and abode 
at Bethany (and never took any part in the promulga- 
tion of the gospel). 

4 Thirdly, he whom God raised up, saw no corruption:' 
but of Lazarus, we are informed, that he had lain in the 
grave four days, and that his body was already putrified. 



THE RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS. 31 

• Now, for what purpose is this greatest of all such 
miracles supposed to be wrought ? The Almighty is 
here introduced as enabling Jesus to perform the great- 
est miracle imaginable, for no kind of purpose what- 
soever.' 

Such, and still stronger expressions of unbelief, 
and disgust, at this miracle, have fallen from the pen 
of the learned Christian divine, Edward Evanson, his 
professed and firm faith in the divinity of the Christian 
revelation notwithstanding. 

It is then nothing but sheer intolerance, and a 
wicked and cruel usurpation of a tyrannous infallibil- 
ity, in any man, to refuse his fair consideration to the 
calm and sober principles of rational criticism, applied 
to this subject, as they ought to be applied to every 
subject proposed to the human mind. 

I submit, then, to every mind that hath not re- 
nounced the use of reason altogether, all the reasons 
that can possibly be applied to this case, which are : 

1st. Reasons for considering it to be true. 

2d. Reasons for considering it to be false. 

3d. Reasons for considering it to be neither true 
nor false ; but allegorical. 

I. The reasons f 07' considering it to be true are: 

1st. All the reasons, whatever they be, and how 
strong or weak soever, which men have, or can pre- 
tend to have, for believing the gospel, or any part of 
it, to be true : there absolutely being no reason left, 
why any part of the gospel should be believed to be 
true, if this be false. 

2d. The narrative is told with such solemnity, 
such minuteness of circumstance, such an appearance 
of artlessness and simplicity, and so tender a vein of 
human gentleness and love, that our feelings betray 
our judgment, and it must cost any man an effort to 
break the charm thrown over his faculties, and to pro- 



32 ASTEONOMICOTHEOLOaiCAL LECTUEES. 

nounce that to be fiction which is so agreeable to 
imagination and so affecting to sentiment. 

3d. No appearance of a bad or wicked design is 
traceable in any part of this gospel : yet, if it were 
false, it is hard to conceive how its author could have 
had any other than a bad and wicked design. 

4th. Even the statistical inaccuracies which a se- 
vere criticism may detect in the detail of this miracle, 
admit of an apology honorable to the veracity of the 
evangelist -. since it may be maintained that they are 
not more, nor other, than such as a mind absorbed in 
the substantive truth of the great fact itself might na- 
turally fall into : and such as a mind engaged only in 
giving plausibility to a fiction, would have been more 
likely to have avoided, than to have committed. 

II. The reasons for considering the miracle to be 
false are : 

1st. The want of corroboration of the single testi- 
mony of this one man, by any other testimony what- 
ever. 

2d. The appearances of collusion between all the 
parties concerned in it. 

3d. The appearance of theatrical exhibition. 

4th. The intermixture of repeated declarations, 
which can by no possibility have had any other than 
a scenic or dramatical propriety. 

5th. The outrage on all the known laws of nature, 
and the character of man, involved in any attempted 
understanding of it, as other than a dramatic represen- 
tation. 

6th. The insignificancy and uselessness of the 
miracle to any end that could have been proposed by 
it. 

7th. The monstrous absurdity of the supposition, 
that the miracle could have been real : and not have 
commanded the belief of the whole world. 



THE RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS. 33 

8th. Its obvious (subjectness) to the unanswerable 
questions : — 

1st. Why is the whole affair got up in the private 
circle of Jesus's immediate friends ? 

2d. Why waits Jesus till arrangements are made 
for his appearance ? 

3d. Why quibbles he with his disciples on so se- 
rious a subject, in such a string of riddles and conun- 
drums, as that Lazarus was sick, but ' not unto death,* 
— then, that he was only asleep, and he was going to 
awake him out of sleep — and then, that his friend 
Lazarus was dead, and he was glad of it ? 

4th. How comes Martha, the sister of Lazarus, to 
run out to meet Jesus in public, at a particular place ? 

5th. How comes she to anticipate that Jesus was 
going to raise her brother from the dead ? 

6th. How comes she to be so perfectly acquainted 
with the doctrine of the resurrection at the last day, 
before Jesus had taught any such doctrine, or any Jew 
or Jewess upon earth had ever dreamed of such a doctrine? 

7th. How came Jesus to say that he was 'the 
resurrection and the life,' as a way for saying, that he 
was the author of the resurrection, and the giver of 
life : and then to propose such a monstrous conundrum 
as — that a man might be a believer though he was 
dead ; and though he was dead, might yet be alive ; 
and though he was alive, might never dio : and then, 
to ask a poor young woman, who was already half out 
of her mind with grief, whether she believed it ? And 
so she said, ' Yes, my Lord.' 

She believed everything ; and had no doubt that 
he was the most extraordinary personage that ever 
lived ; the Christ, the Son of God, which should come 
into the world. Whereupon she gets off with a false- 
hood in her mouth, to run and fetch her sister to come 
and see the performance. 

2* 



34 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

Her sister, upon arrival at the place of exhibition, 
repeats the speech of Martha, only giving it more ef- 
fect, by falling down at Jesus's feet. An act, for which no 
propriety but that of dramatic effect can be imagined. 

' When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the 
Jews also weeping,' — why! he wept too! He groan- 
ed inspirit, — ev^pLji7]aaro tw r nve.v\iaTi — that is, he made 
a noise with his breath ; and was troubled, nai erapagev 
eavrov and shook himself ! But wherefore ! In 
the name of God, I ask wherefore ? And, 

* He said, where have ye laid him ?' How came 
he not to know ? And where else could he think that 
they had laid him, but in the churchyard ? 

* Jesus wept :' then said the Jews (who, it is to be 
observed were weeping also), ' Behold, how he loved 
him!' Now what is this, but the language of the 
chorus of a tragedy, calling upon the spectators to ob- 
serve the process of the scene ? 

' Why, after all this weeping and groaning, must 
the scene be changed to the churchyard, as if Jesus 
could not have raised him so well without going near 
enough, and ordering the tomb-stone to be taken away, 
and calling with ' a loud voice,' that the dead man 
might be the more likely to hear him ? 

How comes Martha, who, in the 22 d verse, had 
discovered that she was aware of the intended miracle, 
upon the taking away of the stone, for the convenience 
of the dead man's hearing, when Jesus called him, to 
endeavor to magnify the miracle, by remonstrating, 
'Lord, by this time he stinketh, for he hath been 
dead four days V 

Why did Jesus make a speech to God, and tell 
God that it was only because of the people that stood 
by that he spoke it ? 

Why did he ' lift up his eyes to God,' who is_ 
invisible ? 



THE RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS. 35 

Why did he call with a loud voice to Lazarus, 
when a whisper in his ear would have done as well ? 

How came Lazarus to come forth, when he was 
' bound hand and foot with grave-clothes ?' 

How came his face to be bound with a napkin, 
oovdapiv — a sudary, a pocket handkerchief? when 
the use of such an article was not known, and had ne- 
ver been heard of till many hundreds of years after this 
gospel should have been written ? 

How came Jesus to say, ' loose him and let him 
go ?' Where did he go to ? 

How came some of the Jews, who saw this miracle, 
to have gone and represented it to the chief priests 
and pharisees as an imposture ? 

How is it, that Lazarus himself never attempted 
to vindicate the reality of the miracle, and that we 
have no account of what became of him afterwards ? 

These, and many other similar queries, which every 
rational mind must suggest, and no rational mind ever 
did or can attempt to answer, lie a dead weight in the 
scale of reasons, why this miracle should be pronounced 
a falsehood. 

But, in bar of such a judgment stands the alterna- 
tive of the possibility of its being neither true nor 
false, but allegorical. 

III. Reasons for considering this miracle to be 
allegorical are : 

1st. The relief which the admission of an allegori- 
cal sense affords to the moral character of the Evan- 
gelist, who will not appear to have been so bad a man, 
and does not, from any part of his writings, appear to 
have been so bad a man, as, beyond all doubt, he must 
have been, had he intended to have palmed off this story 
as an historical truth. 

m 2d. There is nothing more certainly known of 
ancient times than that the first priests were jplayers ; 



36 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

that the first mode of instructing mankind was by- 
shows and pantomines ; and the earliest types of the 
religions of all nations were pictures of the operations 
of nature. . 

When the people began to apply themselves to 
agriculture, the formation of a rural calendar requir- 
ing a continued series of astronomical observations, it 
became necessary to appoint certain individuals charg- 
ed with the functions of watching the appearance and 
disappearance of certain stars, to foretell the return of 
the inundation, of certain winds, of the rainy season, 
and the proper time to sow every kind of grain. These 
men, on account of their services, were exempt from 
common labor, and the society provided for their main- 
tenance. 

The name of Bishops, retained to this day, — the 
Episcopacy, the Diocese, the 'See, are all derived from that 
function of seeing or looking out, to observe the phe- 
nomena of the visible heavens, which was their appoint- 
ed duty. 

The natural stupidity and dullness of the people, 
the difficulty of oral communication, and the importance 
of impressing the mind as much as possible, led these 
astrologers to convey their instructions by pantomimic 
and hieroglyphical actions. They personated the ele- 
ments, the winds, the seasons, the sun, the moon, the 
stars, the months, the days, and so forth ; and dressed 
themselves in emblematical devices, stoles, rochets, ton- 
sures, black gowns and white, and performed tragedies, — 
such as this of ' the resurrection of Lazarus' appears to be. 

The names of the priests themselves, who had 
been peculiarly successful in these exhibitions, would 
often come to supersede the proper dramatical names, 
— what had been shown upon a stage, would come to 
be spoken of as having really happened. The very 
excellence of the performance would but strengthen 
the delusion : and as it has been played off on the 



THE RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS. 37 

mind from infancy, when the deepest impressions are 
most easily made, not one mind in a hundred thou- 
sand would be likely to acquire sufficient vigour after- 
wards, as to care, or to endure to be informed of the 
original significancy. 

Yet the literal text itself of this miracle, most 
literally adhered to, discovers that it was an allegori- 
cal tragedy : and an absolute violence must be done 
to the text, and words inserted that are no part of it, 
and words omitted which are a part of it, 
to make it appear anything else than such a tragedy. 

The tragedy really is, the tragedy of Bethany, 
that is, of the House of Affliction. Its meaning is, 
the Death and Resurrection of the Year. The 
Dramatis Persons are, the year, represented by 
Lazarus ; and, 

The two winter months, December and January, 
represented by Martha and Mary, the two sister at- 
tendants on the dying and reviving Lazarus; 

The Sun, represented by the Lord, or manager 
himself: 

The Chorus, the attendant Jews, endeavoring to 
comfort the two winter months, concerning the death 
of their brother, the year. 

The Clue to the allegorical sense is, — the Sun 
withdraws himself, and the year, which he loves, is sick. 
The two winter months, the youngest and oldest 
sisters of the year, to which the Sun is equally at- 
tached, send to the Sun, to inform him of the declin- 
ing state of their brother, the year : 

Upon which, the manager, or chief performer in the 
tragedy, kindly informs the aduience, that ■ this sick- 
ness is not unto death ' — that is (than which no sense 
ever conveyed by words could be plainer), that there 
was no real death, and consqeuently no real resurrec- 
tion, and no reality of any sort intended ; but ' for 



38 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

glory of God,' — that is, literally, under the bright- 
ness of God, * that the Son of God might be glori- 
fied thereby ' — that is, the whole matter was intended 
as an hieroglyphieal exhibition of the power of the 
sun on vegetative nature. 

If it were not for a false collocation of the words, 
the very first words of this chapter would at once dis- 
cover its theatrical character. For it is not in the 
Greek text, as in our deceitful translation, ' Now a 
certain man was sick, named Lazarus:' — but, Now 
Lazarus was any sick — that is, not that there was 
any man in the case, — for that word is expressly ex- 
cluded : but Lazarus represented the character of the 
sick, — the sick anything, — the sick and debile year : 
and the probability is, that this part was acted by a 
doll, or puppet, let down, and pulled up, by a string, 
— as there was no speech, or action of any sort, for 
Lazarus to perform. The term, The Lord, in the 
second sentence, ' It was that Mary, which anointed 
the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her 
hair,' is of a purely astrological significancy. It could 
not have been applied to any real personage : it 
could not have been used by an historian of real 
events: it could not have been devised, till after the 
established prevalence of all the notions which it 
involves. 

The Kurios, or person who was to represent the 
Sun, in this famous tragedy, having spoken the pro- 
logue in explanation of its allegorical meaning falls at 
once into the corps de ballet, and speaks and acts in 
his character of the Sun throughout ; and churlishly 
answers the remonstrances of the days who want to 
be longer than he finds it convenient to wait for them, 
1 Don't I give you twelve hours a piece ? what would 
you have? And as for our friend the year, — Tis, — 
if he has any day at all to walk in, he is right enough: 



THE RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS. 39 

because he has all the light that my arrangements can 
afford him.' 

Eecovering his temper, however, he adds, 'Our 
friend Tis — that is, the year, sleepeth, but I shall go 
and wake him out of sleep.' \ If he sleepeth he shall 
do well,' say the days, 'for he has been in a declining 
condition a long while.' 

Then saith Jesus, that is the Sun, in a parrhe- 
SIA, — that is, in the figure of rhetoric called a parr- 
hesia, a poetical license in the confidence of its 
figurative character being understood, — Lazarus is 
dead — poor Lazarus. In a figure of speech, Lazarus 
is dead — that is, by a parrhesia, Lazarus is dead, — 
this word, parrhesia, positively asserting the figurative 
sense, and binding on us an obligation to understand 
what is said, in none other than a figurative sense, 
escapes the discovery of the mere English reader, by 
standing in that most wickedly false translation, 
' Then saith Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is 
dead.' Why then ? says Thomas, — that is, — the 21st 
of December, — always given to gloom and despair, 

1 Tis done, dread winter spreads his latest gloom, 
.And reigns tremendous o'er the conquered year. 
How dead the vegetable kingdom lies : 
How dumb the tuneful ! Horror wide extends 
His desolate domain.' 

1 If the year be dead, let us, the days, die with 
him,' saith Thomas, which is called Didymus — that 
is, a Tw t in, which cannot but remind us of the sign 
of the Zodiac, Gemini, the Twins — to his fellow 
disciples, roiq aviifiad^raig, to his fellow-PUFIluS. It is 
truly astonishing that the sense of this word should 
never have startled the slumber of Christian credulity 
into a sufficient discovery of the allegorical character 
of the whole system. A MadrjTTjg literally signifies a 
learner of the mathematics, a pupil, a scholar to 



40 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUKES. 

some mystic art ; which cannot be supposed for a 
moment to apply to the followers of a man who cer- 
tainly was no professor of any art : but strikingly 
suits a company of amateur comedians, under the 
management of an old stager, learning the art of 
acting. 

The Sun — that is, the manager personating the 
Sun — finds his friend the year, to have been in the 
sepulchre four days — that is during the 21st, 22nd, 
23rd, and 24th of December. The Jews, who are the 
chorus, as was usual in all ancient tragedies, are 
introduced as comforting Martha and Mary — that is, 
December and January, concerning the death for their 
brother, the year. Here again, the word for comfort- 
ing, literally asserts, that the whole affair was a my- 
thology, or fable ; and that this chorus of Jews were 
to mythology ze with the mythological Martha and 
Mary. 

Martha, in her mythological character tells the 
Sun, that if he had been present, her brother (the 
year) had not died: which astronomical truism is re- 
peated by her sister month. 

The Sun assures her, that it will soon be new 
year's day, — her brother shall rise again. 

' Yes,' she replies in character, 'in a month or two, 
— next spring, — in the last day, when you cannot 
for shame refuse to shine upon us, the year will rise 
again.' 

' I am the spring, — my presence recalls the year, 
— whatever depends on my exhilarating beam, though 
it seems to die in winter, yet shall live : and nothing 
that exists, however it may change its form and cir- 
cumstance, shall ever be annihilated.' 

1 Now, Jesus was not yet come into the town, 
but was in that place where Martha met him.' 
v. 30. 



THE RESURRECTION OP LAzARUS. 41 

Here is another stage direction, an evident in- 
struction to the scene-shifters, as to the order in which 
the scenes were to succeed each other; and to the 
performers, as to the positions they were to take front- 
ing the audience. 

Scene, a distant view of the town of Bethany ; 
Jesus standing on the right; enter, from the left, 
Mary, who falls down at Jesus's feet; Jesus deeply 
affected, groans in spirit. Scene changes to the 
church-yard ; the tomb of Lazarus. ' It was a cave, 
and a stone lay upon it ' — v. 38 — that is, precisely 
the same scene as the tomb of Jesus, used in the 
tragedy of the Resurrection of the Sun, which was 
also * a cave, and a stone lay upon it.' 

In this tragedy of the resurrection of the year, 
the allegorical personages, Mary and Martha, or, as it 
is too carelessly directed, ' they took away the stone 
from the place where the dead was laid.' v. 41. But 
in the tragedy of the Resurrection of the Sun, which 
was a great improvement upon this, the machinery 
was much improved ; and the same allegorical per- 
sonages, Mary Magdalen, and the other Mary, are re- 
presented as asking, ' Who shall roll us away the 
stone from the door of the sepulchre?' Mark, 16. 
' And when they looked, they saw that the stone was 
rolled away: for it was very great' — 17 — that is, it 
rolled itself away, for it was very great. It was a 
very peculiar stone indeed. It became animated, — it 
came to life : and when coming to life was the order 
of the day, you know, it was quite as likely that a stone 
should come to life, as a corpse : for if the corpse had 
not been quite as dead as the stone, there could have 
been no miracle at all in the case. 

Nay, far greater authority is there, both of the 
Old and New Testament, to lead us to believe that 
it was the tombstone that came to life, and not the 



42 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

corpse. For we are nowhere told that the corpse was 
in anything different from other corpses ; but we 
are most expressly told that the stone was a very 
great stone. 

There is no prophecy in the Old Testament of the 
resurrection, either of Jesus or of Lazarus ; but there 
are the clearest predictions of the resurrection of a 
stone. ' Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I lay in 
Zion for a foundation stone, a precious corner stone, 
a sure foundation.' Isaiah, 28. ' The same stone 
which the builders rejected,' saith the Psalmist, 
' has become the head of the corner ; this is the 
Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes.' 

Now what stone could be more marvellous in our 
eyes, than a stone that came to life, and was also a 
very great stone ? 

But the New Testament is still more explicit in 
laying it down, that it was the tombstone, and not 
the corpse, that was raised. 

St. Peter, who was the first of all the disciples, 
in eagerness to visit the sepulchre, and to ascertain 
everything that had taken place, is expressly said to 
have seen the stone that was rolled away from the door 
of the sepulchre. And he saw and believed, but he saw 
nothing of the corpse : and, consequently, in his first 
epistle, it is not in the living corpse which he requires 
us to believe, but in the living stone (1 Peter 2 — 4). 
A living corpse, we know, is no corpse at all, and, 
therefore, could have nothing marvellous in it. But 
a living stone would, indeed, be something for a man 
to believe in, and supply some sort of a foundation 
for our faith. 

It is altogether monstrous and inconceivable that 
dead men shall come to life again. But we have the 
positive assurance of Christ himself, that it would be 
nothing out of the course of nature for the stones to 



THE RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS. 43 

become animated, and that if the children that cried 
after him as he rode through the streets upon a 
Jerusalem pony should have held their peace, the stones 
would immediately have cried out. Luke, xix. 40. 

God, we know, is able of the stones to raise up 
children unto Abraham. 

The term laity, by which the clergy designate 
the common people, is derived from ?Mog, a stone, 
which signifies that the laity, in the judgment of the 
clergy, are little better than stones made to be trod 
on, made to lie in the dirt, or to be chiselled into blocks 
and pedestals to support the church, — a compliment 
which we see paid to true believers (and than which 
they deserve not better) by the apostle himself. 'Ye 
also, as lively stones,' says he, ' are built up a spiritu- 
al house' (a house for the priesthood) — as much as to 
say, ye blocks, ye stones, ye fools, — alive indeed, 
but with no more wit than blocks and stones, — nothing 
can be too gross for you: — a sarcasm, which, if it 
had not been deserved, would not have escaped detec- 
tion, since we find him laying it on again, in the 
same connection. i As new bom babes desire the 
sincere milk of the world,' the pap, the lolipop, the 
tapioca of the gospel, — suck it in, ye squalling babes 
of grace ; you shall see the show, and it shall all be 
right earnest ; and you shall see Lazarus come out of 
his grave, and you shall see Jesus come out of his. 

Such, I am sure, is the significancy, and none 
other than such, of the passages I have read, 

I am not more sure of my own existence, than I 
am of the fact, that not a single individual who can 
read the original text, not one on earth, of whom every 
sensible man would not, the moment he saw him say 
that 7nan is laboring under mental insanity, who 
would, in any company whatever, seriously maintain 
that he believed in the resurrection of Lazarus. 



44 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

Is it not, then, my brethren, a cruel wrong, — is it 
not an outrageous tyranny, — is it not a grievous op- 
pression, — that our understandings are to be insulted, 
and our moral feeling trampelled in the dust, for the 
keeping up of this system of hypocrisy ; and that we 
must pay the respect, due alone to wisdom and virtue, 
to a system that there is not a rational man on earth 
that believes, nor one on earth who would dare to 
say that he believed, anywhere but where he might 
be neither questioned nor answered? 



III.— THE UNJUST STEWARD/ 



For that which is highly esteemed among men, is abomination in the 
sight of God.' — Luke xvi. 15. 



In a former discourse, I treated that most important 
and characteristic passage of this holy gospel, which 
bears in the gospel, without any note or comment of 
mine, the avowed character of ' the parable of the Un- 
just Judge. 'f I come now to the consideration of the 
no less important counterpart of that parable, which, 
in the same gospel, and in like manner without any 
note or comment of mine, bears the title of the parable 
of the Unjust Steward. 

The two parables together are essential parts and 
pillars of the great fabric of the morality of the gospel. 
They constitute its moral : they both of them purport 
to be propounded by Christ himself, to instruct us in 
the most important lessons in which man is interested ; 
the one exhibiting to us the character of God, the other 
exhibiting to us what is, or ought to be, the character 
of man — that is, of a Christian man, a true disciple and 

* The Church of England appoints this parable of the Unjust 
Steward to be read every ninth Sunday after Trinity, and prefaces 
it with the collect : ' Grant to us, Lord, we beseech thee, the 
Spirit to think and do always such things as be rightful, that he, 
who cannot do anything that is good without thee, may by thee 
be enabled to live according to thy will, through Jesus Christ our 
Lord.' 

f See Devil's Pulpit, p. 113, Blanchard's edition. 



46 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

follower of the blessed Jesus, the only man you 
know worthy the name of man. In the parable 
of the Unjust Judge, we are instructed upon what prin- 
ciple it is that God will act towards us all ; and in the 
parable of the Unjust Steward, we are instructed how 
it is that we all ought to act towards one another. So 
that these two unjust characters, the Unjust Judge, that 
executed people first and tried 'em afterwards, and the 
Unjust Servant that robbed his master, are the divine- 
ly selected specimens of the moral perfections of both 
God and man. 

The gospel, ye see, my brethren, contains the 
purest system of morals ever propounded to man. It 
has its difficulties and its mysteries, it must be allow- 
ed. But look at its morals ! its morals ! for God's 
sake, look at its morals ; and then let any man say if 
such a perfect, such a beautiful code of morals, could 
possibly have emanated from any other source than 
divine inspiration? 

If there were no other world than this to look to, no 
hereafter, no future state; yet, 'Godliness has the promise 
of the life which now is, as well as of that which is to come : ' 
and a man, making the morals of the gospel the rule 
of his life, and acting on the principles here laid down, 
would hardly fail of promoting his best worldly inter- 
ests. 'He would be,' as our blessed Savior says, 
1 wise in his generation,' and his Lord would commend 
him for his honest, honest rascality. That there may 
be no possible danger of misunderstanding the moral 
instruction, laid down in this divine parable of the Un- 
just Steward, whom his Lord commended, because he 
had done wisely ; we have the same moral lesson laid 
down in the parable of the steward who ivas not un- 
just, but returned his Lord's money, without letting a 
halfpenny of it stick to his fingers, whom his Lord 
commanded to be bound hand and foot, and cast into 



THE UNJUST STEWARD. 47 

utter darkness, because he had not done wisely. His 
account with his master enabled him to answer the 
call at any moment that it might be made, with a ' Lo, 
there thou hast that is thine.' ' But, O thou wick- 
ed servant,' said his master, 'why have'nt ye brought 
me more than was mine for it ? Usury ! interest ! 
cent, per cent., two for one, four for two, and ten for 
five. So the poor fool was hanged for it, though not 
a sixpence, not a halfpenny had he detained, even to 
pay the rent of the bag that he had kept it in. But 
the other fellow, who had contrived that his reckoning 
should come in to the tune of minus <£20, out of the 
i£100, and minus £50 out of another, was a gentleman 
to the back-bone, established in a circle of the most 
respectable connections ; and his example is propound- 
ed by Christ himself, as that which all good Christians 
ought to imitate — the grand pattern and paragon of 
Christian honesty. It is the more important that these 
moral excellencies should be pointed out, and set in 
full view, inasmuch as we are continually encountered 
by the favorite argument of a particular sort of Infi- 
dels, who, while they hesitate not to own that they do 
not believe the doctrines of Christianity, yet assert 
that it ought to be supported on account of the moral 
excellencies of the system merely. 

What! say our conscientious lawyers (our Attorney- 
Generals, our /Scarlet counsellors, and Brown mayors, 
whose morality is all of the gospel school, — all of this 
Unjust Judge and Unjust Steward character), would 
you do away with a system that restrains men from 
the commission of crimes, which proposes such beau- 
tiful examples to their imitation, holds out such ani- 
mating prospects to their hopes : and would you open 
the flood-gates of vice and immorality which would de- 
luge society, if once men were to set the gospel aside, 
and begin to act like rational creatures ? 



48 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

So, my brethren, all I say is, let us examine this 
precious morality, and see how far we may improve 
upon the mere guidance of unassisted reason, by set- 
ting these beautiful examples before us, and conform- 
ing our conduct to the principles proposed. 

Of these principles, the first and paramount prin- 
ciple is, the sheer summerset and upsy-turvy of all 
notions of right and wrong, and of all distinction be- 
tween good and evil, which our unassisted reason would 
suggest, and natural conscience approve. For the 
principle laid down by Christ himself, and which must 
never be out of observance as the guide and rule of 
all Christian morality, is here in specific terms avow- 
ed, ' that which is highly esteemed among men, is an 
abomination in the sight of God :' of which, the co- 
essential and necessary converse is, that that which is 
abomination in the sight of men, is highly esteemed by 
God. Our meat is God's poison, and that which is 
vice with us is virtue with him. 

So that, upon gospel principles, the man whom all 
the world, and all wise and good men in the world, 
had known to be the blackest scoundrel, thief and 
murderer, that ever breathed, may, for all we know, be 
an angel of light, and the paragon of innocence all the 
while. 

Who shall condemn when God acquits ? Who can 
acquit when God condemns ? If God be for us, who 
can be against us ? 

For, on the other hand, my brethren, we may all 
of us deserve to go to Hell without knowing what we've 
been doing. We may be miserable sinners, without 
ever having so much as said our souls were our own. 
The Rev. Dr. John Pye Smith, for instance, a very 
particular friend of mine, and the Rev. Dr. Bennett, 
who are particularly skilled in the morals of the gospel, 
and have got just the right way of applying gospel 



THE UNJUST STEWARD. 49 

principles, would take such a man as your humble ser- 
vant, well enough as the world wags, and show him 
up in such colors, that the dearest friend he had on 
earth should be frightened at him. Innocent, gentlemen ; 
be perfectly innocent. God, sirs, that's of no use at 
all. You'll be all the blacker for being all the whiter, 
and all the worse for being all the better ; your inno- 
cence will be the proof of your guilt, your not having 
done what they lay to your charge, will be the very 
proof that you did do it : your spotless virtue, your 
unwarped integrity, will only serve to show what 
abominable creatures you are in the sight of God, and 
all your righteousnesses are as filthy rags. 

Rig fit's right ! we used to say in the corrupted 
currents of this world, but when we come to gospel 
morality, we find that right's wrong, and it's ten to one 
if we don't find ourselves in Hell at last, by means of 
the very virtues with which we had hoped to pay the 
turnpike into Heaven. 

Where, for instance, could there have been danger 
of a more fatal mistake, than that we were likely to have 
fallen into in forming a judgment of the character of 
the Unjust Steward, whom our blessed Savior proposes 
as an example for our imitation. We should have 
thought the man no better than he ought to have been. 
We should have thought that when his master caught 
him altering the sums set down in the ledger, and 
truckling with the debtors to let 'em off, with half, and 
three parts payment, that he might go snacks in the 
difference ; his master would have said, ' O you rascal ! 
It would be an injury to society to let you escape un- 
hanged !' But nothing of the kind said he. His mas- 
ter was delighted with him : said he was the cleverest 
man he had ever had in his service, took him into part- 
nership, I dare say, on that very account, in hopes that 
he might bring the same adroitness of cheating to the 

3 



50 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

benent of the common concern — while our blessed Sa 
vior (just as honest as both of them) instructs us all 
to act on the same (if not) swindling and rascally, per- 
fectly evangelical principle. ' And I say unto you, 
make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unright- 
eousness' — that is, cheat ! swindle ! rob ! and steal ! 
clap your hands deep enough into your master's bag. 
Put money into thy purse, as honest Iago says to 
Roderigo : put money into thy purse, and then what- 
ever purse it came out of, it will be sure to make 
friends for you. Make to yourself friends of the mam- 
mon of unrighteousness. 

Mammon is an undefinable Syriac word for money. 
The mammon of unrighteousness, therefore, means 
only money unrighteously obtained. So that the only 
moral sense that can be given to this passage, amounts 
to no more than the Catholic principle, that the end 
justifies the means : we are to do evil that good may 
come : to get money by deceiving and robbing those 
who trust us, and when we have got it, to make the 
best friends we can with it, Rem facias : rem si pos- 
sis recte : si non quocumque modo rem.* 

In vain do we look for an ironical sense in the 
commendation of this fraudulent conduct, and still more 
in vain, for any alleviating sense of the apparent pro- 
posal of it to our imitation by Christ himself. Should 
we suppose the injured Lord to have condescended to 
treat a matter of the most attrocious fraud as a mere 
exploit of shrewdness, to have put up with this injury, 
and to have meant no more by commending the Un- 

* Get money, if you can get it honestly ; but if you cannot, get 
it as the Devil may help you to it. Nay, the command goes fur- 
ther than this. For if the mammon were not unrighteously obtain- 
ed, it could in no sense be called the mammon of unrighteousness. 
So that a command to do something with the mammon of unright- 
eousness involves a command to get mammon unrighteously. 



THE UNJUST STEWAKD. 51 

just Steward, because he had done wisely, than that 
he commended him, because he had done shrewedly, 
wisely for his own interest, however traitorously and 
villainously for his master, the moral would not be at 
all mended : it would only leave us to doubt, whether 
the master or the man were the greater knave. 

Shall We suppose our blessed Savior, in propound- 
ing this example to us, to have meant, that it was 
only the shrewdness and foresight of the Unjust Stew- 
ard, that should be imitated, and not his unjust con- 
duct : and thus the utmost extent of the moral lesson 
intended was, that Christians (the children of light) 
ought to be as politic, shrewd, and actively on the 
look-out, for the furtherance o'f their heavenly and 
immortal objects, as knaves and tricksters (the chil- 
dren of this world) are, for the promotion of their 
worldly and unjust purposes? Yet, 

If it were so (and be it so), I challenge the last 
particle of common sense and common honesty that 
Christianity hath left in any Christian heart, to say, 
if this be not the most equivocal, suspicious and dan- 
gerous way of inculcating a moral lesson, that ever a 
viciously disposed mind and a bad heart could have de- 
vised. Here's a lesson of moral virtue set before us in 
an example of a dashing stroke of villainy : we're to 
go to school to learn honesty from a pickpocket : to 
pluck the jewel virtue out of the mire of iniquity, to 
go to Heaven by way of Hell, and to be as true and 
just in all our dealings as it is like we shall be, when 
we have taken a lesson from the man that robbed his 
master. 

Excellent morality this ! The more one studies it, 
the more it improves upon us. It is the shrewdness 
of the act, and not the act that we are to imitate. It 
is the foresight, the precaution, the acumen, the intel- 
lectual energy, the ingenuity of resource, the skill of 



52 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

contrivance, the calculation of results, the! the! what 
d'ye call it, that is proposed as an example to us, in 
which respects, indeed, it is a matter of just reproof, 
that Christians should suffer themselves to be outdone 
by the mere worldly wisdom of those whose objects 
and pursuits are confined to the purposes of this tran- 
sitory world : only the Devil on't is, to find out, after 
a man shall have learnt this moral lesson, and have 
become a perfect adept in the shrewdness, the fore- 
sight, the ingenuity, and all the other virtues which 
our- blessed Savior was so anxious to inculcate, what 
should hinder him from taking a benefit occasionally? 
How long will a man meddle with pitch and keep his 
hands unsoiled ? and study the elegant arts and evan- 
gelical sciences of bilking creditors, picking locks and 
forging bills, only for the sake of being able to show 
that he could do such a thing, if his conscience would 
let him. But it is not alone the difficulty of the moral 
problem which should engage our study in this para- 
ble : it presents a difficulty of a critical character of 
still more absorbing interest, a difficulty which Chris- 
tians have found it more expedient to skip and pass 
over than fairly to grapple with. For here, sirs, is 
another of those ten thousand indications of monkish 
and monastic fabrication, which betray the true charac- 
ter and origin of your whole gospel mystery. If these 
sanctified examples of unjust judges, unjust stewards, 
unjust masters, unjust servants, an unjust God, and 
unjust men, have left a particle of honesty remaining 
in the creature of these examples. Look ye here, sirs ; 
look ye here. 

" I say unto you, make to yourselves friends of 
the mammon of unrighteousness, that when ye fail they 
may receive ye into everlasting habitations. 

Kay to v\liv Aeyw irofqaars eavrolg ttXog,eK rto fiafiwa 
TTfC aduuas, ova, orav etc^cn7}Te t dti-wrou vfiag eig raj 



THE UNJUST STEWAKD. 53 

aiuvLug anrjva^. Orav EKXerrjTS — that is, when ye fail — 
that is, when ye fall short of your reckoning, when ye shall 
have robbed your masters, and are found out, they — 
that is, ihef fiends which you shall have made at your 
master's expense, may receive you into the Aionian 
habitations." 

Now where is the Christian man who has ever done 
his own reason the justice to ask for the meaning of 
all this ? or who hasn't rather shut his eyes and run 
away from his reason, for fear his reason should bring 
his faith to justice, and cry stop thief! Fkiends! 
made your friends by the mammon of unrighteousness. 
What honest friends are they ? bought friends, bought 
by money, bought by money unrighteously obtained, 
friends for whom you robbed your master to give to them? 

r< That they may receive ye into the Aionian hab- 
itations." What habitations are they ? for which you 
must pay rent before hand, and purchase your right 
to be admitted by an annual insurance fee, to be raised 
(no matter how it was to be raised), it was to be raised. 
The revenues of the church must be raised, or the church 
will raise the Devil ; beg it, fetch it, steal, starve, or die, 
— but you must raise the revenues of the church. 

And is it, Sirs, because it hath never been possi- 
ble that there could have been such a thing as a gang 
of thieves in such an honest world as ours is, never 
any universities, or colleges, or monasteries, or nunne- 
ries, or corporate bodies of congregated knaves, monks, 
friars, black, white, and grey, Dominican, Benedic- 
tine, Franciscan, Augustinian, that we must look for 
these friends of the mammon of unrighteousness in 
some other world? In Heaven, you know! in glory, 
I suppose ? These friends of the mammon of unright- 
eousness are the souls of the poor saints, whom you 
shall have relieved by your charitable bounties upon 
earth, and who, having gone to Heaven before you, 



54 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

when you shall go after them, will fly with open arms 
(that is, with open wings) to meet you, and cry, 
" Ah ! what are you come ? 'twas the best thing you 
ever did in your life, when you robbed your employ- 
ers to give it us. Come in, my boy! here's the 
best lodging in the whole sky for you : we're all the 
same kidney here. Character, reputation, good name 
in man or woman. Really, you would not have been 
in the wrong box, if you had never cared a rush for 
your character," "for that which is highly esteemed 
among men is an abomination in the sight of God." 
"He hates an honest man as the Devil hates holy 
water ! " And that's gospel morality again. So sub- 
lime, ye see ! so exalted, so superior to anything that 
can be found in the moral precepts of any of the 
sages and philosophers of antiquity, whose precepts, 
though discovering here and there a ray of dim light 
borrowed from the Shekinah of the Jews, yet never 
shone with the lustre, never exhibited that beauty of 
example, that simplicity of illustration, and the gran- 
deur of moral excellence, which appears in every one 
of the parables, doctrines, and precepts of our blessed 
Savior. 

But the bright concentration of moral perfection 
cannot fairly be estimated by partial views, or by 
taking merely distinct parts of the system. It is the 
result of the harmonious whole : and ere we presume 
to give our judgment on the moral tendencies and as- 
pects of any particular parable of this divine collec- 
tion, we should bring it to the light derived from all 
the other parables, and from the whole history, life, 
and conduct of that divine teacher who did not come 
to plagiarise and adopt the moral precepts of the 
Pagan philosophers, but "who spake as never man 
spake," and laid down a system of morals, not only 
opposed to the natural dictates of the human heart, 



THE UNJUST STEWARD. 55 

but at war with all the conceptions of the human un- 
derstanding. 

The philosophers of old, ye see, had laid it down, 
that honesty was the best policy: and Cicero has 
gone so far as to insinuate, that, if a man should put 
his hand into a gentleman's pocket, and rob Peter to 
pay Paul, though Paul might have no objection to it, 
it wouldn't be quite right ; but our blessed Savior has 
taught us, that there's nothing like making friends of 
the mammon of unrighteousness. 

The philosophers of old, again, were so loose in 
their notions of moral propriety, that they were of 
opinion, that if a man had stolen anything, he ought 
to return what he had stolen back, every farthing of 
it, to its original owner, without making any allowance 
for human depravity: whereas, the only rule laid 
down by the apostle is, "Let him that stole, steal no 
more," which, if a man steals as he ought to do while 
he's about it, he'll have no occasion to do. But if he 
were to give it back, he might as well have been 
doing nothing ; he will have lost not only the advan- 
tage of that shrewdness, adroitness, ingenuity of re- 
source, and skill of contrivance, which our blessed 
Savior recommends, but he will have lost also the 
means of making friends of the mammon of un- 
righteousness. 

On which considerations, our blessed Savior not 
only set us an example of the most perfect righteous- 
ness, by never returning the ass, and the colt, the 
foal of the ass, which he stole himself, because he 
had need of them : but he has left us the most un- 
qualified and positive precept to guide our conduct in 
similar cases: "He that is unjust," says he, "let 
him be unjust still." Or, as it stands in our text, 
though somewhat more ambiguously, " He that is 
unjust in the least, is unjust also in much;" which 



56 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

is as much as to say, you should always steal by 
wholesale when you're about it; which, again, is not 
more than the holy apostle, St. James has said, 
" For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet 
offend in one point, he is guilty of all," (2 James), 
which is precisely what may be called gallows morali- 
ty, which, in like manner, inculcates that a man might 
as well be hung for an ox as a sheep. 

As our blessed Savior, who was the friend of sin- 
ners and hypocrites, and knaves and swindlers, and 
thieves and impostors, and all other unfortunate 
gentlefolks ; and, as the apostle says, " could have 
compassion on them that were out of the way, inas- 
much as he himself was touched with a feeling of 
their infirmities ;" gives them the kindest and most 
affectionate moral instruction that ever was given to 
man : " Ye hypocrites," says he, " ye serpents, ye gen- 
erations of vipers, fill ye up the measure of your sins." 

And that there be no possible harm, and no 
danger in doing this, and in sinning as much as ever 
we can, to full measure, as our blessed Savior says, 
filled up, and pressed down, and running over, we 
have the express guarantee of God himself, who, by 
his holy prophet Isaiah, assures us, that "though 
your sins be as scarlet they shall be whiter than snow, 
though they be red like crimson they shall be as wool:" 
or, as the Psalmist has it, still more beautifully: 
" Though ye have lain among the pots, yet shall ye 
be as the wings of a dove (that is), covered with silver 
wings, and her feathers like gold." (lxviii. 13). O 
what a beautiful system of morality is this, my breth- 
ren: no wonder, then, that all the contention among 
sincere Christians is who of them would be the greater 
rogue! they'd all be the chief of sinners if they 
could; and instead of concealing their sins from 
Almighty God, or wishing to hush the matter up, as 



THE UNJUST STEWARD. 57 

any thief who had a sense of shame left in him would 
do, they actually put forth their confessions ; and 
"Mea culpa ! mea culpa ! mea culpa /" cries the 
Catholic: "My fault! my fault! my fault!" "Ah," 
but cries the Methodist, "I'm a wonder to myself 
that I'm out of Hell ; I have sinned in thought, word, 
and deed ; every imagination of the thoughts of my 
heart has been only evil continually. Behold, I was 
shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive 
me. I blasphemed my Maker before I was a quarter 
of an hour old : and I was born so bad, that I feel 
that if I'm not born again I'll be damned." Ah, well 
a day ! then, would an honest man say to 'em. But 
is it for such brands plucked out of Hell fire ? Is't 
for such thieves, for such rogues as you acknowledge 
yourselves to be, to take upon ye to preach in the 
highway, and to make the little boys and girls, at your 
Sunday-schools, promise that they won't go to Bartle- 
my-fair for fear they should spoil their morals by looking 
at the puppit SHOWS ! Cannot you be content, ye Hell- 
rakes, with your good luck in having slipt through the 
fingers of justice, and had the punishment due to your 
offences laid on the shoulders of the innocent : but 
you — you must set up for guardians of the public 
morals : you must warn the world of the immoral 
tendency of Infidelity. 

The philosophers of old, also, were always for 
giving their moral instructions to those who did not 
want them, and confined their friendship to honest 
men: but our blessed Savior was the friend of sin- 
ners, and so passionately fond of bad company, that 
even in the last hour of his life, when he had all the 
world to choose out of, who should be with him in 
paradise, he chose a thief. ' This day (said he) shalt 
thou be with me in Paradise.' 'He came not to call 
the righteous, but sinners. His favourite examples 



58 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGIACL LECTURES. 

of character and conduct are such as prodigal sons who 
squander their fathers' property, and then come blub- 
bering home to ask for slavery, and broken victuals ; 
secretaries of state, that rob the treasury ; bankers, 
that lend money for cent per cent interest ; parsons 
that claim a day's wages for an hour's work i' th' 
vineyard; tax-gatherers, who cry 'God be merciful, 
with reason enough to cry so : and beggars in Abra- 
ham's bosom, that would not give a rich man a drop 
of water, though they saw him in the flames of Hell. 

But that we may never confound our Savior's 
notions of justice, with the notions which uninspired 
and unsanctifled philosophers would give us — we 
have one other parable, which I might lose my oppor- 
tunity of noticing, if I omitted here : 'tis that in 
which our blessed Savior describes to us the arrange- 
ments, economy, principles, and results of that divine 
banquet, that marriage feast of the King's son, which 
is the type of heaven itself. 

Where the guests you see, instead of being any 
persons of respectability of life, any persons who 
were worth a piece of land, or five yoke of oxen, or 
even able to keep a wife, — all of that stamp, with one 
consent, began to make excuse ; they knew enough of 
the entertainment they might expect, to send their 
compliments to his Majesty, and they'd rather not, if 
he pleased, and I cannot come, am engaged in looking 
after a new estate, and I go to prove my oxen at a 
ploughing match, and I am married, and I cannot 
come ; and I cannot come was the cry throughout the 
whole circle of 'em. 

Ye see, that the gospel was always peculiarly adapt- 
ed for the poor: it was always the poor that had the gos- 
pel preached unto them: it was always a beggarly gospel. 

But, better be a king of the beggars, you know, 
than king of nobody. So ' go out quickly into the 



THE UNJUST STEWARD. 59 

streets and the lanes of the city, and bring in hither 
the poor and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind ; 
og out into the highways and hedges, and compel them 
to come in,' was the order of the day. Compel them 
to come in, — never ask their own consent about it, — 
seize 'em, pull 'em, thrust them, kick 'em in ! 

Or, as the gospel invitation is beautifully versified 
by our evangelical poet : 

" Come naked ! come wounded ! come sick ! and come bare 
Come tag-rag, and bob-tail, come just as you are ! 

This being the nature of the invitation ; and no 
time, and no rhyme, and no season, and no reason, 
and no excuse, and no refuse in the matter allowed, 
it couldn't be the most wonderful thing in the world, 
that some of them should be in their dishabile, and 
not make quite so handsome an appearance as became 
the splendor of a royal banquet. So the King, who 
in this sublime parable is the type of God, and whose 
reasonableness and justice are set before us, as an 
example of the reasonableness and justice, which is 
all we have to expect from God, taps me his royal 
finger on the shoulder of a poor Irishman, who was 
there like the rest of 'em, against his will, — and 
comes it — the good-natured and sincere-hearted Quaker, 
4 Friend, friend, how comest thou in hither, not hav- 
ing on a wedding garment.' And the man was speech- 
less. He was speechless ; and I don't wonder at it ! 
He was dumb-founded. 

But, blessed be God, we can guess what he'd a 
said if he hadn't been speechless, — we can guess it, 
as I guess that if I had stood bye, I'd a' whispered 
in his ear, 'Friend, this is gospel morality for you.'' 
They brought you here, you see, against your will. 
Now they've got you, they don't like you ; good bye ! 
good bye ; this is their gospel morality : ' Bind him 



60 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

hand and foot, and take^him away, and cast him into 
utter darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of 
teeth.' (Mat. xxii. 13), was the command of that 
righteous King. Ah, poor Patrick. It was a very 
different use of your teeth that you reckoned on, 
when you were invited to dine with his Majesty. 
How do you like a King, Paddy? So pressing at 
first, you see, that there was no staying away, and so 
pressing at last, that there's no running away. 

And, as if of purpose, to bar off all possibility of 
pretending that this is not the true nature of gospel 
justice ; or that any greater charity than this was ever 
intended by gospel invitations — our gospel ministers 
continue, to this day, to invite us to the gospel feast, 
and to partake of the holy Sacrament, upon precisely 
the same bargain. 

And this, then, is the morality of the gospel ! thia 
is that pure system of ethics, which, though it were 
founded on fable, ought to have its fabulous character 
overlooked, and to be kept up still, on account of its 
beneficial effects on the morals of the people! Good 
god, the morals of the people! The statute and 
common laws of the land are proud to claim alliance 
with the additional sanction of the Bible, in order 
more effectually to guard the morals of the people. 
' Set a thief to — ' you know the rest on't — f catch a 
thief.' But I am sure, that were it true that the 
Bible is part and parcel of the law of the land, and 
that part and parcel of the law of the land .were to be 
administered, I would defy the ingenuity of the coun- 
sel for the Crown to defeat the legal defence, which, 
upon the ground of that part and parcel of the law, 
might be set up in justification of any crime or ex- 
tent of crime whatever. 

Is one brought to trial for robbing his master ? 
And what's to countervail the evangelical plea ? ' He 



THE UNJUST STEWARD. 61 

did it wisely.' And will you, my Lord, condemn a 
man for doing that for which both his Lord and yours 
would have commended him ? Aye, but, brother 
Brougham, the man shouldn't have understood it in 
that way. And will you, my Lord, hang the man 
for the error of his understanding merely ? 

Comes a heart-broken father to the seat of magis- 
tracy to complain of his prodigal son wasting his sub- 
stance in riotous living ? And is't the thread-mill to 
which the magistrate should send the darling of dissi- 
pation. And is't rebuke or punishment that your jus- 
tice will award to the man whom holy writ instructs 
to "bring forth the best robe, and put it on him, and 
put a ring on his finger, and shoes on his feet ?" 

Is the wicked burglar brought up for trial, who, 
in midnight darkness, hath broken in on your secu- 
rity, and held the dagger of terror over sleeping inno- 
cence ? and what's to answer the plea which Christ 
himself has put into his mouth. 

6 When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, 
his goods are in peace, but when a stronger than he 
cometh upon him, and overcometh him, he taketh from 
him all his armour wherein he trusted, and divideth 
his spoils.' Luke xi. 21. And that is gospel justice. 
Or is't the cowardly midnight assassin, who, like 
Moses, the meekest of men, when he had looked this 
way, and that way, and saw that there was no man, 
smote the Egyptian in the back, and buried him in the 
sand : and that is gospel mercy! And will ye condemn 
the meekest of men ? will ye pass sentence on the man 
who made the divine law the rule of his actions, and 
the very model of his imitation ? and who, wading 
through crime and slaughter, to salvation, will lay his 
bloody hand on his conscientious heart, and say, 

" This only shall be all ray plea, 
Jesus hath lived and died for me." 



62 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

What won't one rogue do for another. 

And this is the system which the nation is to be 
drained of its resources — to support. This the mora- 
lity which is so necessary to keep the lower orders in 
subjection, — this the gospel, which, among the thous- 
ands that live and thrive upon it, finds not one that 
isn't, in his own heart, right heartily ashamed of it, 
and afraid, guiltily, wickedly, and cowardly afraid to 
trust its merits to open controversy, and fair discus- 
sion, to which Infidels challenge them ; and none but 
impostors would decline that challenge. 

Delenda est Carthago, 



IV.-THE DEVIL! 

Paet I. 



" Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the Devil, as a roaring 
Lion, walketh about, seeking whom he can devour ; whom resist 
stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accom- 
plislied in your brethrenthat are in the world." 1 Peter, v. 8, 9. 



Having, in the pursuit of this most interesting and 
truly divine science, brought those who have regularly- 
attended the course of these lectures, acquainted with 
the Lord, and shown them the knowledge of the Most 
High: 

The science leads us, in due sequence, to the knowl- 
edge of the Most Low : the adversary, or stander over 
against, as he is called, from the Latin word adversa- 
rius,* the AmJtoAoc of the Greek text, of the same sig- 
nification, diametrically opposite : so that a line drawn 
through the Lord of the Ascendant, which ever it 
might happen to be, would pass through Diabolos, or 
Lord of the opposite sign ; hence the French word Le 
Diable ; and the English of our text, your Adversary, 
the Devil, who, as a roaring lion, walketh about, or 

* Adversarius (adjective) opposite, the reverse to. 



64 ASTKONOMICOTHEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

TrepnraTei, more literally, walketh round, seeking whom 
he may devour, nva tcaramr}, more literally, whom he 
may swallow up or absorb. 

For when this roaring lion walketh round, so as, in 
his turn, to become Lord of the Ascendant, — so that 
is, when the sun is in this sign, all the Stars in that 
part of the Heavens where he is, are absorbed and 
swallowed up in his effulgence, they become entirely 
invisible, till their divine master has passed by. 

For " at whose sight all the Stars hide their dim- 
inished heads :" 

" Or lost dissolved in his superior rays, 
One tide of glory — ene unclouded blaze 
O'erflows his court." 

x4.nd as this constellation, the roaring Lion, has his 
head directed towards the south, and is coming down- 
ward : the firm in the faith — that is, those who are 
instructed in the mystery of the Kingdom of Heaven, 
are admonished to stand, on the opposite side, and to 
contemplate the §tarry Heavens, ex-adversis, as if 
turning their backs on the foul fiend, as the Apostle 
James has it, " Resist the Devil, and he will flee from 
you ;" though our blessed Savior delivers an apparent- 
ly directly contrary injunction, " but I say unto you, 
that ye resist not evil." 

A paradox only to be relieved, by faith — that is, 
not by credulity or implicit belief, but by the proper 
understanding of the science of astronomy, which is 
faith, whereby we understand that this Devil is not 
really evil, nor this resistance moral, but physical and 
scientific merely, which our text virtually asserts in 
those words : " whom resist stedfast in the faith, know- 
ing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your 
brethren that are in the world." That is, these ra avra 
r(*)v TraOefxaruv, these same stories of sufferings, this 



THE DEVIL. 65 

Lion walking round in the Zodiac, and seeming to 
swallow up the Stars, or seeking whom he may devour, 
which are exhibited in the celestial Zodiac, are a type 
or hieroglyphical picture of the like afflictions which 
occur to your brethren that are in the world. 

But who, then, could be the persons to whom this 
Epistle (as it is called the first Epistle General, or the 
first Catholic Epistle of Peter) was addressed? Or 
who the Peter who thus addressed them ? We must 
dig, as it were, into the earth, and shut our eyes to 
hide from ourselves the evidence that blazes before us, 
that this Catholic Epistle is the composition of a Catho- 
lic Abbot, or father of a convent of the order of the 
Vigilant Monks, the Cenobites, or continual watchers, 
who had retired into their monastery, and shut them- 
selves off from all connection with the commerce and 
business of life. 

" From the false world in early youth they fled, 
By him to mountains, rocks, and deserts led ; 
He raised their hallowed walls, the desert smiled ; 
And Paradise was opened in the wild. 
No weeping orphan saw his father's stores, 
Their shrines irradiate or emblaze their floors ; 
But such plain roofs as piety could raise, 
And only vocal with the Maker's praise. 

The very name of Pope Gregory, as the founder 
or consecrator of this order of Vigilant Monks, is in- 
volved in the Greek of the text, be vigilant. Tp^yoprjoare. 
jplay Gregory. And they who, in the teeth of such 
palpable evidence, would cheat themselves or others 
into a notion that it was written by a Jew, must make 
such peace as they can with the author, who expressly 
declares himself (and sure, I hope he ought to know 
best who he was) that he was a Gentile. 

And if ye want to know what sort of a Gentile he 
was, he tells you himself, in the chapter immediately 



66 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUKES. 

preceding, that he was a lascivious, debauched, drunk- 
en, revelling, banqueting, and abominably idolatrous 
Gentile: though he instructs his holy brethren, that 
he was now getting an old man, he had had enough 
of that kind of life, and intended to become a new 
creature in Christ Jesus, or to put on the new man, 
which, after God, is created in righteousness and true 
holiness ; thus verifying the universal adage that the 
greatest sinners make the greatest saints. 

But 'tis the other sacred personage with whom we 
are now to become acquainted, called expressly by St. 
John, the Divine, that Old Serpent, which is the Devil 
and Satan. 

Now of ail the instances that might be adduced of 
the demoralizing tendency of superstition, and of the 
necessarily false, deceitful, truckling, and ungrateful 
character, which it induces, in all men who yield their 
minds to its bad influence, none is more striking than 
that of the process of opinion and sentiment with res- 
pect to this divine personage. 

Would it be believed, if the evidence were not as 
glaring as the day, that there are those who profess, and 
call themselves Christians, who hesitate not to deny, 
or who boldly avow their doubt of the real and sub- 
stantive existence of the Devil ? 

And that dread majesty of Hell, whose fearful 
name stands first in the Christian's baptismal vow- 
He first, traitor-like, denies to have any existence, — 
thus treating that sacred vow as a mockery : sworn to 
renounce the Devil and all his works : and yet coming 
to a conceit that there is no Devil, and, consequently, 
no works of the Devil to be renounced. 

But if there be no Devil, there is no Savior. You 
cannot take away the foundation-stone of the great 
Christian pillar, and leave the fabric standing. So 
long as Christianity continues to be part and parcel 



THE DEVIL. 67 

of the law of the land, its ever to be venerated forms 
will continue to ascribe all evil deeds to the instigation 
of this mighty spirit. The felon and the criminal only 
become such by the perpetration of such heinous acts 
as they were led to perpetrate, ' not having the fear 
of God before their eyes, but being instigated by the 
Devil.' 

And if, indeed, there were no Devil, or if he were 
a merely imaginary being : a personification of evil, an 
allegorical figure only, — what is to hinder all the other 
personages spoken of in the gospel from being merely 
imaginary beings, and allegorical figures, as well as he ? 
especially when it must be admitted that there is not 
one of the personages mentioned in the gospel, whether 
as a man, woman, or child, a whit more known to his- 
tory than he. 

You would find as many and as credible witnesses 
(and indeed, a great many more) who would profess 
that they had seen the Devil, and conversed with him, 
as ever professed to have seen and conversed with 
Christ, or with any one of his apostles : and we have 
pictures and portraits of him, that are quite as good 
likenesses as the Madonna of Titian, or the Christ of 
Raphael and West. 

You will find no language, either of the Old or New 
Testament, referring to Christ, or his Apostles, or to 
God himself, implying any more substantive or real 
existence in him or them, than the language constant- 
ly used in reference to the Devil and his Angels. 

But what is more, there is no name, attribute, or 
title of Godhead, Power, Majesty, ascribed to the 
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, either in 
the Old or New Testament : but that that same is the 
name, title, and attribute of Satan. 

The character of the Tempter is, in sacred theolo- 
gy, rather more appropriate to God than to the Devil. 



68 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

For though the Devil is represented as tempting par- 
ticular individuals : yet God is the Great Universal 
Tempter, who has sent all mankind into a state of_ 
probation, and whom the whole Christian world have 
never hesitated to address and worship, as the Great 
Tempter, in that which is called the Lord's Prayer, 
saying, \ Our Father, which art in Heaven, lead us 
not into temptation :' which would be horrid blasphemy, 
if leading men into temptation were the exclusive 
office and business of Satan. 

For though St. James says, l Let no man say when 
he is tempted, I am tempted of God : for God cannot 
be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man : 
but every man is tempted when he is drawn away of 
his own lust and enticed ;' which cannot but strike a 
reflecting man as a very Atheistical account of the 
matter, a sort of resolving all things into merely natu- 
ral causes: and, as our evangelical clergy call it, 
'shutting God out of his own world.' Yet nothing 
can be more explicit than the assurance, that God did 
tempt Abraham : and St. Paul's most full explanation 
to the Corinthians, that God is not merely the Tempter 
of all men, but takes particular delight in this sort 
of business, — as he tells them, 'there hath not temp- 
tation taken you, but such as is common to man : But 
God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted 
above that ye are able, but will with the temptation, 
also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to 
bear it.' 1 Corinth, x. 13. 

The character of an Accuser is alone distinctively 
peculiar to Satan. But though he is called an Accu- 
ser, even ' the accuser of our brethren, which accused 
them before God, day and night :' yet to an innocent 
man, an accuser was never yet an enemy. None but 
the wicked, none but the guilty, can have cause to 
fear or dislike an accuser. The innocent man may 



THE DEVIL. 69 

make his confident appeal either to God or Devil, like 
King Lear> in the storm : 

" Tremble, thou wretch, 
That hast within thee undivulged crimes 
Unwhipped of justice : hide thee, thou bloody hand, 
Thou perjured, and thou simular man of virtue, 
That under covert and convenient seeming, 
Hast practised on man's life ! close pent up guilts, 
Kive your concealing continents and cry, 
This dread accuser, grace : I am a man 
More sinned against than sinning." 

Satan, though called an accuser, is never said to 
be a false accuser : and in the discharge of his office, 
day and night, before God, there is at least implied 
his abhorrence and detestation of iniquity, transgression 
and sin. It is Christ who is the friend of sinners : 
but the Devil is no friend of theirs, nor they of his: 
and for no better reason than because he is their accu- 
ser — and where is the rogue or thief in the world who 
could be reconciled to the counsel for the Crown, the 
Attorney-General of the universe. For such is Satan, 
f. the government is upon his shoulder, and his name 
shall be called Wonderful Counsellor, the Mighty God, 
the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.' Such 
are the titles and epithets of Satan in the sacred text. 
And till they can rail the text from off the book, they 
but offend their lungs who rail on Satan. 

But the most important of all things to be observ- 
ed is, that though Satan is pre-eminently called an 
adversary, and the Adversary : in the strictly geome- 
trical significancy of that word, as that side of the Areo- 
pagus is adverse, or the diametrically opposite to this : 
and a diameter drawn from any one of these signs of 
the Zodiac, would pass into its adversary ; and any 
two persons, standing opposite to each other, are ad- 
versarii, in relation to their respective positions, — he 



70 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

is never called Hostis, Inimicus, nor by any other 
name which would signify a moral hostility or un- 
friendliness. For opposition is not hostility : and an 
adversary, therefore, not a term of a moral, but of an 
astronomical insignificancy, which significancy will be 
found as the basis of every one of the names given to 
Satan : and is the key that unlocks the whole mystery. 

For, as the sun passes successively through every 
degree of these twelve signs of the Zodiac — the sign 
at which the sun, at any given time, is found to be, 
is for that season or time, the Supreme God : and the 
directly opposite sign is the accuser, the adversary, or 
the Devil : so that they are each of them both God 
and Devil in their turns. 

All the titles and names of the Devil found in the 
Scripture, not excepting one, are the common names 
of the Supreme God : yet all of them, not excepting 
one, are directly indicative of the annual phenomena of 
the Sun's apparent progiess through the twelve months 
of the year. 

Nor is there a single allusion to the character of 
Satan, either in the Old or JSTew Testament, but what 
bears an astronomical sense, and will bear no other. 

The Prince of Darkness is, of course, the adversary 
of the Prince of Light, and consequently persecutes or 
follows after him, as the night must follow the day, and 
the cold and cheerless reign of winter succeeds the 
summer. As the Earth presents its whole surface suc- 
cessively to the Sun ; the illuminated half was the 
Kingdom of Heaven : while the dark side, being ad- 
verse to the Sun, even diabolically adverse, was sym- 
bolically represented as the kingdom of the powers of 
darkness, and literally called Hades, or the Invisible 
World, or Hell, or Bottomless Pit; which, indeed, 
most literally is bottomless, their being no bottom nor 
conceivable limit to the extent of infinite space, towards 



THE DEVIL. 71 

which the Earth presents its adverse or diabolical sur- 
face : and it is none other than the language of the Sun 
eclipsed by the Earth, which we read in the allegori- 
cal complaint of Jonah, when swallowed up by the 
Coetus, or Fish of winter. I went down into the belly 
of Hell, — the Earth, with her bars, was about me for ever. 

It is the angel of the bottomless pit, of whom St. 
John, in the 9th of the Revelation, tells us, that he 
was king over the scorpions, or angels that were like 
scorpions, and that had tails like unto scorpions, and 
there were stings in their tails, and their power was 
to hurt men five months. 

Now there is the scorpion, in the gates of Hell, — 
that is, the Genius of October. Count, if you please, 
the five that are under him, or over which he reigns, 
October, November, December, January, February, 
and there, in March, ' Behold the Lamb of God, that 
taketh away the sin of the world.' 

But observe, I pray, the words of John the Bap- 
tist, who came baptising, and there he is, Aquarius, 
January, Janus, Jonas, IcoavvrjG, the forerunner of 
Christ, have no reference whatever to such an idea as 
that of sin, or as the taking away of sin — ids o Apvog 
tw #£0) o a,LpG)v ttjv afiaprcav t(o Koofio) — is, ' Behold the 
Lamb of God,' or the Celestial Ram, who taketh up, or 
rectifieth the aberration of the Mundane System. 

But that we may not think the worse of our God, 
the Sun, for putting on his diabolical character, or 
think him less worthy of our devotion in his state of 
humiliation than in his glory, when he descended into 
Hell, than when he arose again from the dead, and 
ascended into Heaven : the sacred mystagogue tells us 
explicitly, that the name of their king, this Baalzebub, 
or Belzebub, Lord of Flies, or Lord of the Scorpion, 
is, in the Hebrew tongue, Abaddon : but in the Greek 
tongue he hath his name AnoXXov. 



72 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

Now the Hebrew word Abaddon is compounded of 
the two words, Abba, Father, and Don, Lord: where- 
by all good Christians may know who it is that they 
address, when God doth send the spirit of his Son into 
their hearts, whereby they cry, Abba, Father : and we 
perceive that it was no breach of Christian charity, 
but a most correct application of the strictly scientific 
language, when our blessed Savior told the Jews, 
'Ye are of your Father, the Devil.' 

The Greek name of the Devil, AttoXXov, is the 
same as the Latin Apollo, the well known and univer- 
sal name of the Sun. As in the medals of JSTero, this 
God is represented as crowned with laurels, having his 
quiver upon his shoulder, and the Star of Phoebus by 
his side, with the Greek words, ArroXXov Hojrrjp — i. e., 
Apollo, the Savior. 

That the same king of Locusts, Beelzebub Apol- 
lyon, should be the destroyer as well as the Savior, is 
but one among the thousand proofs that I could bring 
that the Savior and the Destroyer are, and ever meant, 
but one and the self-same being. Jehovah, the 
Yahouh, invariably challenging to himself the attribute 
of Destroyer, as well as Creator. As in that well- 
known version of the 100th Psalm : 

" Before Jehovah's awful throne, 
Ye nations bow with sacred joy ; 
Know that the Lord is God alone, 
He can create, and he destroy." 

It is the same eternal Sun, who appears as God 
the Creator, to that Lamb of God who openeth the 
Kingdom of Heaven to all believers, who appearing in 
the adverse sign, the Diabolus, or Devil in the worm 
that never dieth, who, standing there, in October, the 
gates of Hell, is still the Fire that never shall be 
quenched. And this is the solution of that enigmat- 
ical language of St. Paul, whose purport is to show 



THE DEVIL. 73 

that Jesus Christ and the Devil are really but one and 
the self-same God, under different manifestations. The 
Devil becoming Christ, when at the Vernal Equinox, 
he ascends into Heaven, and Christ, in turn, becoming 
the Devil, when he descended into Hell, the proper 
seat and kingdom of Satan. « Now that he ascended,' 
says the Apostle, « what is it, but that he also descend- 
ed first into the lower parts of the earth. He that 
descended, is the same also that ascended, far 
above all heavens, that he might fill all things ;' that 
is, that he might pass through every one of the signs 
of the Zodiac, as he does every year, thus accomplish- 
ing his annual ministry ; of which he speaks in his 
hieroglyphic character, to the Doctors in the Temple. 
' The spirit of the Lord is upon me : because he 
hath Christed me to preach deliverance to the cap- 
tives, and recovering of sight to the blind (that is, to 
give the day in due succession to our antipodes, who, 
of course, are in the dark when we are in . the light, 
it being night with them when it is day with us), and 
to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.' Language, 
than which astronomy itself could not be more 
astronomical. 

But take all the names of the Devil which occur 
in Scripture, and all the attributes ascribed to him, they 
will be found to be the common names and attributes 
of the Supreme God. 

1 1 appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob,' 
saith he, in the 6th of Exodus, ' by my name.' 

Baal Shadai, God Almighty, 
•jn^-ba Bel-Aitan, the Mighty Lord. 
Wfea Bel-Geh, the Lord of Health. 
3*fca Bel Ial (Belial) Lord of the Opposite. 

Baal-Zebub, Lord of the Scorpion. 

Baal Berith, Lord of the Covenant. 

Baal Peor, Lord of the Opening. 

4 



74 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOaiCAL LECTUEES. 

Baal Perazina, Lord of the Divisions. 

Baal Zephon, Lord of the North. 

Baal-Saraen, Lord of Heaven. 

Adoni Bezek, Lord of Glory. 

Moloch Zedeck, King of Righteousness. 
Lucifer, Son of the Morning ; or, as it is rendered 
in the margin (Isaiah xiv. 12). Day Star, the very 
name of Jesus Christ in the New Testament. The 
Day Star from on high, that visited and redeemed his 
people ; or, in his own express challenge of that name, 
and in the 22d of the Apocalypse : — I, Jesus, am the 
bright and Morning Star, than which he could not 
have said in plainer words, I, Jesus, am Lucifer ; that 
is, I am the Devil and Satan. ' And no marvel,' says 
the apostle, ' for Satan himself is transformed into an 
angel of light.' 

And most literally indeed might he say, no mar- 
vel ! For 'tis no marvel, these transformations of 
Christ into the Devil, and of the Devil back again into 
Christ,being as regular as the succession of day and night. 
All these, and innumerable others of like effect, are 
the names of Satan in the Old Testament, as we find the 
same divine personage expressly called God in the New 
Testament, 'the God of this world,' by St. Paul. 

' The Prince of this ■ world,' by Christ himself. 
The Chaldean for the Hebrew word pia, Bole, or 
Baal, is Kp, Bel : and hence Bel and the Dragon are 
but one and the same Deity, who was worshipped by 
the Phoenicians and Canaanites under the name of 
Dagon : which is compounded of the two words 
Dag, the Fish, and Ov, the Sun: that is, the sun in 
the constellation of the fish ; that is, when the great 
whale of the northern constellations is Lord of the 
Ascendant, and seems for the three days and three 
nights, the 2 2d, 23d and 24th of December, to have 
swallowed up the sun. So said the Hierophant of 



THE DEVIL. 75 

the spell, ' an evil and adulterous generation seeketh 
after a sign, and there shall be no sign given it but 
the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonas was three 
days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the 
Son of Man be three days and three nights in the 
heart of the earth.' It being exactly three days and 
three nights cut off from the reign or life of our old 
friend Jonas, Janus, or January, falling about a week 
or ten days earlier than in our reckoning, which are 
every year swallowed up in the cold and watery Fish. 
Milton, who was too good a scholar not to know 
that the Hebrew name, spo, Shetan, Satan, signified 
opposition, but not enmity, makes Satan himself give 
us its etymological signification — 

" I, Satan, and I glory in the name. 
Antagonist of Heaven's Almighty King." 

But we shall not wonder that the characters of 
Christ and the Devil should prove so much alike in 
every other respect, that the Devil only could tell 
where was the difference, when we find the Christ of 
the New Testament so emphatically declaring that it 
was none other than himself, who was typified by that 
same Old Serpent, who, being indeed the God of this 
world, has been worshipped by every nation, kindred, 
tongue, and people under Heaven : and in every age 
and time in which the world has existed. * For as 
Moses lifted up the Serpent in the Wilderness : even 
so must the Son of Man be lifted up.' Ophiolatry, or 
Serpent-worship, was the most extensive and univer- 
sal religion that ever existed. 

The serpent was the universal type and emblem of 
the Supreme God. 

In the ancient ritual of Zoroaster, the great ex- 
panse of the Heavens, and even nature itself, was 
described under the symbol of a Serpent. 



76 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

Serpents were worshipped in Persia, and through- 
out the East, and had temples built to their honor, 
under the express titles of tieug rcog [xeyiOTog, aai ap- 
yrjyojc, rov oXuv, the greatest of all Gods, and the 
superintendent of the whole world. 

By their truly magnificent and silent motion in 
progression, they represented the elliptical orbits of the 
planets ; and their bright scales, the countless millions 
of Stars, revolving orbit within orbit, yet never clash- 
ing ; and advancing, as our whole solar system has, 
by the only late discoveries of Halley, Lemonnier, 
Cassini and Herschel, been ascertained to be advan- 
cing the whole together through infinite space towards 
the constellation Hercules.* 

Yet all guided by one purpose, all with one life 
instinctive. 

Their motion without the aid of limb, or any split- 
ting or division of the body in any parts, presented 
the most lively type of the unity of the Godhead, his 
independence of all foreign support or assistance, his 
strength and life in being himself. 

By putting his head in his mouth, the serpent is 
the well-emblem of eternity. 

By shedding its skin, as it does, four times a year. 
It is an emblem of immortality, so curiously and enig- 
matically described by St. Paul — ' not that we would 
be unclothed, but clothed upon.' 

By its hissing noise is represented the voice of 
God, which was never distinctly articulate, but always 
very terrible, as Isaiah assures us, ' that the Lord will 
hiss unto them from the end of the Earth : and he 
will hiss for the fly of Egypt.' The fly of Egypt 
being the Cock Chafer, or Hercules Scarabceus, one 

* Or, more accurately, to a point in the Heavens whose right 
ascension is 250° 52' 30", and whose north polar distance is 40° 
22'. 



THE DEVIL. - 77 

of the names of Jesus Christ, which I explained in a 
former lecture. 

But, above all, its sanative or healing powers ren- 
dered the Serpent, the universal emblem of health and 
salvation, and the invariably attendant symbol of the 
Gods called Saviors, Hercules, Apollo, iEsculapius, 
Bacchus, Mercury, Adonis, all are characterized and 
known as Saviors, by the accompanying symbolic 
Serpent. 

The Serpent was worshipped as the Areph, or 
Serapis of Egypt, as the Agatho-Demon, or Creator of 
the world of India, the Good Genius of Persia, as the 
Person of Vichenu himself, in Hindostan, as Vitze- 
puptzli, the Supreme God of the Mexicans. 

Surely, of all ways that ever could have been de- 
vised to restrain the Israelites from Idolatry (could we 
for one moment imagine that there had been a word 
of truth in any part of their history) the most mon- 
strous is that recorded in the 21st of Numbers, ' that 
the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and 
they bit the people, and much people of Israel 
died. And the Lord said unto Moses : Make thee a 
fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole ; and it shall come 
to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he look- 
eth upon it shall live.' Which is none other than a 
version of his own words, in the 45th of Isaiah, 
6 Look unto me, and be ye saved, all ye ends of the 
Earth, for I am God alone, and besides me there is 
no Savior.' 

And here, indeed, almost from the ends of the 
Earth, our altar-piece presents you the self-same snaky 
serpentine Savior. 

In this emblem, brought from the ruins of the 
Temple of Mithra, at Naki-Rustan, the ancient Perse- 
polis — a /Sun, with wings, and in those wings, as you 
see, supported that Old Serpent, the universal em- 



78 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

blem of healing, the very picture to. the words of the 
prophet Micah. 

' Unto you that fear my name, shall the Sun of 
Righteousness arise, with healing in his wings.' 

Well, then, might St. John call the Serpent that 
Old Serpent, the Devil. For the worship of that Old 
Serpent can be shown, by astronomical monuments, to 
have been established in the world more than fifteen 
thousand years ago. 

Never was the age or time in which the celestial 
constellations presented not the wintry serpent pursu- 
ing, immediately upon the heels of the woman, who 
was clothed with the Sun, seeking to devour her man- 
child. The most incontestible monuments have prov- 
ed that this system of the signs of the Zodiac, as it is 
now received, was fully established when, according 
to it, Libra, the Scales of September, was the sign of 
the Vernal, and Aries, of the Autumnal Equinox — that 
is, that the precession of the Equinoxes has produced 
a change of more than seven signs. 

Now, the most learned Bernard has shown, that the 
ancient Egyptian priests calculated this motion of pre- 
cession, or precession of the Equinoxes, as it is called, 
with the most perfect accuracy, as we do at this day, at 
fifty seconds, nine-thirds, and the three-fourths of a 
third degree in a year ; in consequence of which, an 
entire degree is lost, or displaced in seventy-one years 
eight or nine months, and an entire sign 2152, or 53 
years. 

Now, it being known, as it is, to all astronomers, 
that the Equinoxial point of Spring was in the first 
degree of Aries, in the year 388 before our present 
era, it follows that it had left Taurus 2153 years be- 
fore that time, and had entered it about 4692 years 
before Jesus Christ, — thus, ascending from sign to 
sign, the first degree of Libra was the autumnal Equi- 



THE DEVIL. 79 

noctial point, 12,912 years before 388 before Christ. 
Add that 388 years before Christ with our 1830 years 
to the present time, and the amount is 15,130 years. 

To which accurately established period you must 
again throw in the allowance of the length of ages that 
it would take before the Egyptian priests themselves 
would have arrived at so wonderfully accurate a sci- 
ence of astronomical calculations, in which they have 
not been surpassed by the Cassinis, Halleys, Newtons, 
and Herschels of our Christian yesterday. 

Thus precisely the same theological confusion and 
contradiction, upon the same basis of real astronomical 
science, demonstrates the absolute identity of what is 
called the Christian Dispensation, and the Pagan 
Mythology. 

Once possessed of the key, the difficulty vanishes. 
The Holy Ghost is God in the Spring, Jesus Christ 
is God in the Summer, Jehovah is God in the Autumn, 
and the Devil is God in the Winter. According to 
that famous verse of the Orphic Song : 

Eic Zevc, etg Aid?]g, eig RXiog, eig Atovvoog, 
Eter deog ev Tavreooi: 

That is one Jupiter, one Pluto, one Apollo, one 
Bacchus. It is but one God in them all. Or as, per- 
haps, I shall more easily find forgiveness, for quoting 
a Christian plagiarism of the same great truth : 

" These, as they change, Almighty Father, these, 
Are but the varied God ; the rolling year 
Is full of thee : forth in the pleasing Spring 
Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love. 
Then comes thy glory in the Summer months, 
With light and heat refulgent. 
Thy bounty shines in Autumn, unconfined, 
And spreads a common feast for all that live. 
In Winter, awful thou, with clouds and storms, 
Riding sublime, thou bid'st the world adore, 
And humblest nature with thy northern blast." 



V -THE DEVIL ! 



PAET II. 
JOB I — 3^» 



[After repeating the whole of the chapter, as a specimen of 
declamatory narrative, the Rev. Gentleman proceeded] : — 

Men and Beetheen, — I found it impossible, 
within the compass of any one lecture, to do justice 
to the infinitely interesting subject on which I entered 
in my last. In spite of all the disadvantage to the 
understanding of those who come new and strange to 
this sublime science, and can consequently have little 
or no idea of the argumentative process through which 
we have advanced, I must now resume the glorious 
science — beseeching only the candor — nay, the com- 
mon honesty and justice of that fair allowance, which 
all honest and sensible men would feel themselves 
bound to make in every other case, where they had 
happened to come in, for the first time, upon the far 
advanced stage of a course of scientific demonstrations : 
and not knowing the premises on which the reasonings 
had been founded, nor the proofs by which previous 
conclusions had been established, should find them- 
selves, as it might be, in a new world of thought, and 
things entirely wondrous and strange to their apprehen- 
sion, treated of as familiar and evident to the under- 
standings of those who had the happiness to be before 
them in the pursuit of knowledge and learning. 



THE DEVIL. 81 

For surely not to make such allowance, to stumble 
in, merely upon the middle of a course of science, or 
upon the middle of a single lecture of that course, and 
upon the first thing that he might hear, not having 
heard what had gone before, nor what was to follow, 
that had struck him as strange and extraordinary to 
assume a right to judge, or to suppose himself com- 
petent to form a judgment, were no more justice, nor 
no more reason, than that of the fool in the Apologue, 
who, having a house to sell, presented one of the bricks 
of which it was built as a specimen of the whole edifice: 
without any more formality of deprecations and apolo- 
gies, then, I recur at once to the subject of my last 
discourse, to our old acquaintance, to Satan, that old 
Serpent, as he is called by St. John, the divine, 'that 
old Serpent, which is called the Devil, and Satan, the 
great Red Dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, 
and a tail which drew the third part of the stars of 
heaven, and cast them to the Earth.' 

I have repeated to you the whole of the first chap- 
ter of the first book (and, as some think, the oldest 
book in the world) in which first the name of Satan 
occurs, and where it occurs, together with as grand 
and sublime an exhibition of the part and character he 
bears in the sacred drama as was ever conveyed in 
language. 

I have repeated the whole of it, not merely to do 
what justice I could to a scene that is second in gran- 
deur, in pathos, or in sentiment, to no passage of the 
ancient Greek tragedians, nor even of our British 
Shakespere ; and the due reading of which, as it might 
and ought to be read, would add laurels to the brow 
of a Kemble or a Siddons: but also, from that prin- 
ciple of critical fidelity which I have ever stedfastly 
observed, and will never fail to observe, as the grand 
ruling axiom of these demonstrations, never for any 

4* 



82 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

consideration whatever to garble the sacred text, or to 
quote any passage of it, in such a way as to make it 
seem to bear a sense which would not be its proper 
and apparent sense, in the whole context and purport 
of the book from which I quote it. 

This book of Job, in the English version of the 
Polyglott Bible, printed page by page opposite the 
Latin of the Vulgate of Pope Sextus Y. and Pope 
Clement VIII., presents, in its margin, the words, 
'Moses is thought to have written this Book of Job, 
whilst among the Midianites,' B. C. 1520. 

If it were so, the book was written before the Ex- 
odus of the Children of Israel out of Egypt, before the 
call of Moses to be their deliverer, before the five books 
of the Pentateuch ; and, consequently, in Christian 
admission, it stands admitted to be the oldest of all 
books which either the Jewish or the Christian world 
have received as of divine inspiration, and therefore, 
the oldest book in the world. 

While its internal evidence supplies a proof demon- 
strative, which no Christian, who knew what a critical 
demonstration means, could resist, of the absolute 
truth, and indenegandible certainty of the principles 
on which our science has proceeded from stage to stage, 
from step to step, in enucleating the latent sense, and 
unravelling the clue of the whole 'mystery of God, and 
of the Father, and of Christ.' 

I have shewn you, in my last lecture, that the 
priests of Egypt, of whom Moses, or whoever was the 
author of the books ascribed to Moses, was one, and 
which Egyptian priests are the undoubted compilers, 
both of our Old and of our New Testament, had cultiva- 
ted the science of astronomy, and attained a perfec 
tion of knowledge in that science, which has not been 
surpassed, even by the last and most refined demon 
strations of our own Sir Isaac Newton, Lemonier, 



THE DEVIL. 83 

Cassini, Halley, and Herschell. So that many of the 
great truths which our vanity has ascribed to modern 
discoveries in astronomy, are found to be nothing more 
than recoveries, disclosures, and bringings to light of 
that occult science, which lay hid under the thick veil, 
and palpable obscurity of a mystical theology. 

Thus the great secret of the properties of the mag- 
netic needle, the mariner's compass, which, we are 
told, was first discovered by the Venetian Marco Paulo, 
in the year 1260, only 570 years ago, had been known 
to the priests for ages before that time, had subserved 
their purposes, extended their power, and directed 
their voyages, while it was entirely concealed from the 
knowledge of the vulgar, under the veil of precisely 
such allegories as those of our sacred Scriptures are 
found to be. 

The priests of Jupiter Ammon carried the magnet 
with them, in a compass box, as the Ark of the 
Covenant of their God, which it was death for the un- 
sanctiried to look into. 

It was enough that the brute uncurious people 
could be put off with a miracle. They were told that 
Hercules had sailed across the ocean in a vase, directed 
by the arrow of Apollo. It was gospel, and they 
suspected no other meaning than the grossest and 
most literal one, Hercules was God, and nothing was 
impossible to God. 

The poet Homer, 900 years before the Christian 
era, and 2160 years before the pretended discovery of 
Marco Paulo, had given a yet plainer hint of the 
possession of the great secret by the priests, for perhaps 
as many thousand years before his time. The priests 
of Phceacia had ships that were inspired : and in the 
8th Odyssy of Homer they are thus described : 

'Xo pilot's aid the Phceacian vessels need, 
Themselves instinct with life securely speed, 



84 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

Endued with wondrous skill, untaught they share 
The purpose and the will of them they bear. 
To fertile realms and distant climates go, 
And where each realm and city lies they know, 
Swiftly they fly, and thro' the pathless sea, 
Tho' wrapt in clouds and darkness find their way.' 

You see the Devil was in the ships, the sailors 
were all conjurors, and Alcinous, their great high 
priest by these apparently supernatural means, pre- 
sented on his table the fruits of every point of latitude 
on the terraqueous globe, in every month of the year. 
His 'commerce collected the riches of all climates, and 
the purple of Tyre was exchanged for the precious 
thread of Serica; the soft tissues of Kachemire for the 
sumptuous tapestry of Lydia ; the amber of the Baltic, 
for the pearls and perfumes of Arabia ; the gold of 
Ophir, for the tin of Thule. 7 But it was all by witch- 
craft. 

In like manner the telescope, ascribed as a modern 
invention, to Galileo Galilsei, about the year of our 
era 1640, had been known to the colleges of the priests 
for countless ages before that time ; and was concealed 
from the curiosity of the credulous multitude, under 
the allegorical miracle, that Pythagoras could read 
inscriptions on the Moon. 

Near the city of Benares, in India, are the astrono- 
mical instruments which, at a period of incalculably 
remote antiquity, had been used for making solar and 
lunar observations, cut out of the solid rock of a 
mountain. And Diogenes Laertius, a Greek historian 
of the first century, assures us, on the authority of an 
Egyptian priest, that from the reign of Vulcan, or 
Ptha, son of Nilus, until the arrival of Alexander, 
there had been observed in Egypt 372 eclipses of the 
Sun, coincidently with 832 eclipses of the Moon. 

It is madness only, or extreme ignorance, that 



THE DEVIL. 85 

would talk of such accuracies and precision of calcula- 
tion being; imaginary. The exhibition of those hiero- 
glyphical symbols and diagrams in the monstrous 
shapes of bulls, rams, crabs, lions, virgins, in the 
architectural structure of the porches of their temples, 
which amused and deceived the vulgar, contained the 
clue to the esoteric or interior doctrine, which con- 
sisted of the purest and most accurate principles of 
astronomical science. In the Peristyle of the ancient 
temple of Esneh, the ancient Latoplis, in Upper 
Egypt, its ruins still remaining, though much sunk 
below the present level of the Earth, even in our 
own times, has been found a construction of the 
signs of the Zodiac, precisely such as is received at 
this day: by the most indubitable of all evidence of 
date, showing the date of the building of that edifice 
to have been 6430 years ago, which is 596 years 
older than our Bible date of the creation of the 
world. 

Of which great astronomical principles, the univer- 
sally established worship of that great Serpent, the 
Devil, as an emblem and type of the great expanse 
of the visible heavens, is really magnificent evidence. 
As, among the many other reasons which I adduced, 
so very especially for the deep science of the reason 
of its grand and silent motion representing the ellipti- 
cal orbits of the planets : and its bright scales, in the 
healthy state of the animal, studded with gold 'sky-tinc- 
tured grain and colour dipt in Heaven,' representing 
the countless myriads of Suns, revolving orbit within 
orbit, yet never clashing: while its progression, or 
motion in advance, exhibited at the same time the 
only lately recovered truth of the similar advance of 
our whole solar system. 

Planets, Suns, and adamantine spheres, wheeling 
unshaken through the vast immense, toward the 



86 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

constellation Hercules, and yielding their place in in- 
finite space, to a succession of system beyond system, 
universe beyond universe, till the tired thought sinks 
under the immensity of its own conception. The 
Serpent, therefore, of all the things else in nature, 
was the last that could have been the symbol of an 
ignorant idolatry. 

It could not have been what a fool might have 
guessed at, that was all that was meant by the worship 
of that old Serpent, when we have ascertained that 
among its worshippers, the priests of Egypt were so 
accurately acquainted with the whole theory of the 
universe, as to have calculated the motion of the pre- 
cession of the equinoxes, to the nicety of establish- 
ing that motion to be fifty seconds, nine thirds, and 
three fourths of a third of a degree in a year, by 
which the Sun fails of coming up to precisely the 
same point, in the same given time of his annual 
course : and thus an entire degree is lost in seventy- 
one years, eight or nine months ; and an entire sign in 
2152 or 2153 years. 

Whereby, if the Sun sets out from any Star or 
other fixed point in the Heavens, the moment when 
he is departing from the Equinoctial, he will come to 
the same Equinox twenty minutes, seventeen and a 
half seconds of time before he completes his course, so 
as to arrive at the same star or point from whence he 
set out. So that the solar year is twenty minutes, 
seventeen seconds and a half short of the sydereal 
year. The Greek Aristarchus of Samos, 264 years 
before Christ, had announced that the Earth is but a 
point in the universe : that it is spherical : that it 
turns round on its own axis, moving in the oblique 
circle of the Zodiac, while the heavens are at rest : 
that the Sun is a fixed Star, and the fixed Stars are 
Suns. 



THE DEVIL. 87 

The ancient Chaldeans are admitted, by all the 
learned in these subjects, to have been so much be- 
forehand in astronomical science as to have calculated 
the length of the solar year, to the mathematical pre- 
cision of determining its length to be 365 days, 5 
hours, 49 minutes, and 30 seconds. 

Astronomers so absolutely accurate, as that the 
nicety of their calculations, even to a moment, remains 
unshaken by the severest criticism of modern science : 
assuring us as they do, that since the system of 
the signs of the Zodiac had been universally received, 
the point of the Vernal Equinox had been in the first 
degree of Libra ; establishes the fact on the most 
simple principles of arithmetic, even to the nicety of 
the setting of a chronometer, that that time must have 
been the 1st of September, 15,129 years, 5 months, 13 
days, and, if it be at this moment nine o'clock, 
twenty-one hours ago. 

While, by a more than curious coincidence, the 
English of the Polyglott version of the Bible, assigns 
the 1st of September, 4004 years before Christ, as 
the Epocha of the creation of the world: and the 
learned Dr. Lightfoot instructs us, that Adam was 
created on a Friday morning, September the first, at 
nine o'clock : that he ate the forbidden fruit about 
one ; and that Christ was promised about three o'clock 
in the afternoon, (Diegesis, 425.) 

But, perhaps, even the dunce who would quarrel 
with the multiplication table, and whose dulness 
would be inaccessible to a mathematical demonstra- 
tion, may at least respect the authority of his own 
book. And even in his own book, which he admits 
to be the oldest book in the world, he will find the 
Egyptien system of astronomy to have been entirely 
in vogue when that book was written, and the names 



88 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

of some of the constellations the very same as they 

are received among us to this day. 

It is represented as the language of God himself, 

and in no part of Scripture besides is there any langu- 
age to be found so worthy of a God : — 

" Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of 
the Earth ? When the morning stars sang together, 
and all the sons of God shouted for joy. 

Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleia- 
des, or loose the bands of Orion ? Canst thou bring 
forth Mazzaroth, in his season? or canst thou guide 
Arcturus with his sons ? Knowest thou the ordinances 
of Heaven ? Canst thou set the dominion thereof in 
the Earth ?" 

Here, then, have we the key to the great mystery: 
the Sons of God are the stars; the ordinances of 
Heaven are the principles of Astronomy; the Pleia- 
des are the seven beautiful Stars, in the forehead of 
the Bull ; Orion is that most beautiful of all the con- 
stellations which you may see this evening, the most 
glorious ornament of our nocturnal hemisphere ; the 
Mazzaroth are the twelve signs of the Zodiac ; Arctu- 
rus is that great fixed Star of the first magnitude in 
the constellation Bootes, near the- Bear's tail ; and the 
Sons of that distinguished Star are the Stars of in- 
ferior magnitude that make up the whole sixty-four 
of that glorious constellation. Knowing, then, who 
the Sons of God are, we know who Satan was : for 
when the Sons of God came to present themselves 
before the Lord, Satan came also among them : Satan, 
then, was one of the Sons of God, and brother of 
our Lord Jesus Christ : with this only distinction, 
that he was the favorite, and his advice and counsel 
consulted by God, who suffered his Son Jesus Christ, 



THE DEVIL. 89 

to be crucified and slain, but never suffered the Devil 
to get into any trouble whatever. 

Nor does Satan in this interview with the 
Almighty, exhibit an unjust character. The worst of 
him was, that his opinions were of an evangelical 
turn : he had taken up the notion of the general cor- 
ruption of human nature, and thought that even the 
piety of Job himself might be attributable to sordid 
and selfish motives : but whether right or wrong in 
his judgment, his guiding principle was, his abhor- 
rence of hypocrisy and priestcraft : he loved righteous- 
ness and hated iniquity. 

The character in which Satan is presented in this 
sacred book, however it be understood, is a character 
of superior wisdom. His wisdom is represented as 
directing the providence of God : and no other, or no 
better reason have our divines for identifying him 
with the Serpent that beguiled Eve by his subtlety, 
than that assigned by the sacred text, which every- 
body knows, but nobody understands : ' Now the 
Serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field 
which the Lord God had made.' 

From the fact of the Serpent representing in 
hieroglyph all the great theories of astronomical science, 
the infinite number or the fixed stars, by its shining 
scales, the elliptical orbits of the planets by its un- 
dulating folds : the progress of the whole system, 
throughout infinite space, by its motion in progression, 
the unity of the great directing mind, by its independ- 
ence of 'member, joint, or limb,' (in so peculiar a 
manner having life within itself), the eternity of God, 
and of the universe by its easy junction of head and 
tail forming a perfect circle: the immortality of the 
soul by shedding of its skin, and bursting again and 
again into renovated life and youth, and the moral 
regeneration of putting off the old man with his 



90 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

deeds, and putting on the new man, which, after God 
— that is, after the example or emblem of God, the 
Serpent, is created unto righteousness and true holi- 
nes: these accordances and resemblances, which no 
creature nor object else in nature presented, by the 
natural and unavoidable metaphor of language, ren- 
dered the Serpent the type of wisdom and learning. 

The Serpent itself was imagined to be concious of 
all the sublime ideas which its physical characteristics 
typified: by a bold metaphor, it was wisdom itself 
personified : 

1. It was the Agathodaemon or good Serpent, en- 
circling the Mundane Egg of the most ancient theo- 
logy of Persia. 

2. It was, again, the Serpent, Ananda, on whose 
mysterious folds the Creator of the world had slept 
upon the bosom of the ocean during the calpa, or 
period of 100,000 years of the Pouranas of India. 

3. It was the spirit of God that moved upon the 
face of the waters in the cosmogony of Moses. 

4. It was the wisdom which was with God, as 
one brought up with him, and which was daily his 
delight, whom the Lord possessed in the beginning of 
his way, before the works of old, of the sublime 
theology of Solomon. 

5. It was the Genius of Virtue (of the not less 
sublime song of Prodicus), addressing her favoured 
Hercules : 

" But with the Gods and God-like men I dwell ; 
Me, his supreme delight, th' Almighty Sire 
Regards well pleased, whatever works excel 
All, or divine or human, I inspire." 

6. It was the Logos, or ' word of God, that was 
in the beginning with God, and which was God, by 
whom all things were made, and without whom was 



THE DEVIL. 91 

not any thing made that was made,' of St. John's 
gospel. 

7. It was the Holy Ghost, with its never-to-be- 
mistaken cloven-tongue of fire, that sat upon the 
heads of the apostles : of which the apostle James 
explains, the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity 
that setteth on fire the course of nature, and is set on 
fire of Hell. 

It being remembered, as I hope it is, that I have 
shown Hell fire, and the Devil, have no such meaning 
as the ignorance of believers, and the craft of preach- 
ers have attached to them. 

A cloven tongue, the most significant emblem of 
a double sense, and of there being two ways of tell- 
ing a story, would, one might think, be as little to be 
mistaken as a cloven foot. 

The Ophite priests, who held up the Serpent to the 
adoration of the wonder-loving world, as they were 
the most learned of mankind, were said and believed 
to have received their learning from serpents. 

It is most apparently from this phasnomenon of the 
Serpent shedding its skin, that Job, who was an 
Ophite priest, and whose name itself signifies a Ser- 
pent, SWa, Aiub, deduced his hope of immortality in 
that sublime, but never understood apostrophe, 'I 
know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall 
stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though, 
after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my 
flesh shall I see God.' Job xix. 25. 

So the name of Eve, which Adam gave to his 
wife, 'because she was the mother of all living,' in 
the judgment of the most learned authorities I could 
quote, the celebrated Bryant, and as quoted by him, 
in the judgment of Clemens Alexandrinus, signified a 
Serpent. So that if he had the true reading of the 
story of the fall of our first parents, it might turn out 



92 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

that instead of its having been the Devil who tempt- 
ed the woman, it was the woman who tempted the 
Devil, — an insinuation almost more than insinuated in 
that severe objurgation which Milton represents his 
Adam, as addressing to her after her faux-jpas. 

" Out of my sight, thou Serpent ! that name best 
Befits thee, with him leagued thyself as false 
And hateful : nothing wants but that thy shape, 
Like his, and colour serpentine might show 
Thy inward fraud to warn all creatures from thee 
Henceforth, lest that too heavenly form pretended 
To hellish falsehood snare them. But for thee 
I had persisted happy, had not thy pride 
And wand 'ring vanity, when least was fit, 
Eejected my forewarning, and disdained 
Not to be trusted, longing to be seen : 
Though by the Devil himself, him overweening 
To overreach, 0, why did God, 
Creator wise, that peopled highest Heaven, 
With spirits masculine, create at last 
This novelty on Earth, this fair defect 
Of nature?" 

We find the Christ of the gospels, not only ex- 
horting his disciples to * be wise as Serpents,' but ex- 
pressly claiming the Serpent, which Moses lifted up 
in the wilderness, as a type and symbol of himself. 
And the very earliest sect of Christians were designat- 
ed by the name of Ophites, or Ophiani, on account of 
their paying divine honors to the Serpent. 

In Egypt (never forgetting that Moses was learned 
in all the wisdom of the Egyptians), was a Serpent 
named Thermuthis, which was looked upon as sacred, 
which the Egyptians are said to have made use of as 
a royal Tiara, with which they ornamented the Statues 
of the Goddess Isis. But that very name, Thermu- 
this, happens to be none other than the name which 
Josephus gives us, as the name of Pharoah's daugh- 
ter, the foster-mother of Moses. 



THE DEVIL. 93 

And surely, imagination could not conceive a more 
express and formal institution of Ophiolatry or Serpent- 
worship, than that of setting up a Serpent upon a pole, 
endowed with power, or believed to be endowed with 
power, of healing the diseases of all that looked to it 
for health and salvation. For the sacred text is even 
so : ' The Lord sent fiery Serpents among the peo- 
ple, and they bit the people, and much people of 
Israel died. And Moses made a Serpent of brass, 
and put it upon a pole ; and it came to pass, that if a 
Serpent had bitten any man when he beheld the 
Serpent of brass, he lived.' 

What were the poor people to do? Here was 
their God, in one fit, actually biting and stinging 
them into the worship of a brazen serpent ; and in 
another, in thunder and lightning, proclaiming, 4 Thou 
shalt not make unto thyself any graven image, nor the 
likeness of anything that is in Heaven above, or in 
the Earth beneath, nor in the water under the Earth.' 

So that the poor snake-bitten Israelite had not an 
alternative, as to whether or not he would become an 
idolator. He would die if he didn't, and he would 
be damn'd if he did. 

'Happy art thou, O Israel ! who is like unto thee, 
O people, saved of the Lord!' Only which would 
they like best, God who stung them, or the Devil who 
healed them ? 

But what meant the sarcastic chief of sinners, 
when in the third of his second Epistle to the Corin- 
thians, he exclaimed, « Even to this day, when Moses 
is read, the veil is upon their hearts, which veil is done 
away in Christ,' but the thick cloak and deep dis- 
guising mantle of a barbarous and obsolete language, 
in the ignorance of which, the Greek and Roman 
people, as well as the great bulk of the religious com- 
munities of Christendom have been hindered from de- 



94 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOaiCAL LECTUEES. 

tecting the true origin of the superstition that has 
subdued their reason ? Or it would have been discov- 
ered, that these same jfor?/ Serpents are in the original 
text nwtan-irfittjnan, he nacheism, he Seraphim ; and 
the Serpent made of brass — "na^Serap, the very name 
of the Egyptian God, Serapis, whose bishops were 
known and recognized .under the name of Bishops of 
Christ, which really does do away the veil in Christ, 
by discovering to us, that Serapis and Christ are one 
and the self-same Egyptian Idol. 

As the name of Moses is precisely the same, con- 
sisting of the self-same consonant letters as *iittj, 
Mesheh, the Egyptian name of Bacchus, in whose 
mystical worship the most peculiar feature was, the 
extraordinary homage and respect paid to Serpents. 
The frantic women, running about with Serpents in 
their hands, putting them in their bosoms, twisting 
them in their hair, and a thousand times repeating 
the mystic word : even none other than that very, 
word which, to this day, you see written upon your 
Christian altar-pieces, the I.H.S., most falsely inter- 
preted, Jesus Hominum Salvator, Jesus the Saviour 
of Men, but which really was TIES, Hues, the favour- 
ite and most sacred name of Bacchus, God of wine. 

In like manner have the letters AD, put before the 
date of the year, been monstrously read as an ab- 
breviation of the Latin words Anno Domini, in the 
year of our Lord: whereas, the real meaning is, the 
whole, undivided, and unabbreviated, name of Ad, 
the Sun, who really is the Lord of the year, as that 
name expressly signified, the one and only God : and 
that God which none other than the Jupiter Sabazius, 
or Lord of Sabaoth, the Diog Nwc — that is, the 
hoyog, word, or wisdom of God, was expressed in the 
Syriac and Babylonian word, Ait h- Am, which is 
Sathan, or Satan, which was typified under the form 



THE DEVIL. 95 

of a Serpent or Fiery Dragon, and addressed by his 
worshippers in the mystic words Io Nissi. ' O Lord, 
be thou my guide.' 

And there, sirs, to this very day, in the arms of 
the city of London, have you a couple of Devils sup- 
porting the shield, in their own proper shape of fiery 
flying dragons, and the old Babylonish form of prayer, 
Io Nissi, ' O Lord, be thou my guide,' translated 
into the Monkish Latin, Domine Dirige Nos, ' O Lord 
direct us.' 

The City of London being, from time before all 
records, under the guardian providence of the God 
Satan, typified by those fiery flying Dragons : as the 
city of Paris, to this day, is denominated, from the 
Goddess Isis, irapa-loug — that is, under the protection 
of Isis, by the title of Notre dame — Our lady : and 
as the city of Ephesus was dedicated to the same 
divine Lady, under her Grecian name of Diana. 
' For what man is there that knoweth not that the city 
of the Ephesians is a worshipper of the great Goddess 
Diana, and of the image which fell down from. Jupi- 
ter?' 

It has been merely the substitution of one set of 
names for another : the universally obtaining practice 
of conducting religious worship in languages and 
words not understood by the people: the universal 
witnesses of the people themselves, to be ignorant of 
the origin and meaning of the words they used. And 
the trick of the Latin Monks, in giving Latin in- 
terpretations to words of which they themselves 
knew not the meaning that have caused an appearance 
of infinite difference, where, in reality, there was 
none at all, and made Paganism and Christianity, 
which are in reality one and the same religion, and 
Father, Son and Holy Ghost, which are as really one 
and the same God, to be two religions and three 



96 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

Gods : there was never much to be feared from the 
criticism of people who were willing to be deceived. . 
So the Monks, wholly ignorant that the name Ad was 
the ancient Ammonian title of the Sun, when they 
couldn't tell what the word meant, could find out a 
meaning for the letters, and A stood as well for Anno 
as it would have stood for any thing else, and D. for 
Domini. 

Just as scholars, quite as clever as they, upon 
finding the word Finis at the end of a book, and 
making dead sure that there could be no meaning in 
Finis, found out that f.i.n.i.s. could mean nothing 
else than Five Jews Nailed Jesus' s Sid'e, as you 
may read it back again, Six Jews Nailed Jesus's 
Feet. 

They found the name of TII5J, in Greek letters, 
the caballistical name of the God Bacchus, set upon 
his altars in letters of gold, surrounded with golden 
rays, and as they looked more like the Roman letters 
IHS than a bull's foot, they concluded that J. stood 
for Jesus, H. for Hominum, and S. for Salvator, 
Jesus the Saviour of Men : while they who had 
heard the name Hues, pronounced I-ES, clapt the 
Latin termination us to it : and I-ES, the name of 
Bacchus, became T,esus. 

So, again, they found the name of the God Jupi- 
ter- Ammon, uttered in low murmurs at the conclusion 
of every prayer in every form of Heliolatry, or Sun- 
worship, used throughout the Pagan world, as Lucan 
assures us: 

Quamvis ^Ethiopum populis Arabumque beatis, 
G-entibus atque Indis, unus sit Jupiter Ammon.' 

^Ethiopians, Arabs, Indians, from Mount Atlas to 
the Ganges, worshipped a common Jupiter Ammon. 
The mystic name of their God Am On, the Everlast- 



THE DEVIL. 97 

ingEire, the Sun, was uttered or placed at the "beginning, 
sometimes, but always at the end of all their works, 
begun, continued, and ended in him, in all the varie- 
ties of expression and intonation, which the utterance 
of so many people, nations, and languages, could give 
it. It was Ammon, Aumen, Armen, Awmen, Omen. 
But not being able to find the meaning of this, the 
Monks contrived to give us the word without any 
meaning at all, except such as is generally sufficient 
to satisfy the curiosity of the faithful. And Ammon, 
you know, means Ammon; or as you have it in the 
catechism for parish apprentices, ' Verily, I say, 
Amen, so be it,' than which nothing in the world 
could be further off the meaning. 

So the same one eternal and only God, considered 
only in his attribute of infinite wisdom, and his all- 
seeing providence : and as to that attribute, typified 
as a Serpent, the most subtle of all creatures, and 
denominated Aith-ain, — Ifirtb, He Sheth-Ain, Satan, 
the fountain of wisdom, has been most monstrously 
taken to be a wholly different and distinct being, as if 
it had not been the same God who made the day who 
also made the night. 

But the Hebrew word &rt* ISTaschesh, and the 
Greek for both, a Dragon and a Serpent, are each 
derived from words which signify the Eye, and refer 
to a peculiar perfection of sight. And in all the lan- 
guages of Asia, the same word expresses the Eye, 
and the Sun, as Milton's Adam addresses the Sun, 
"Thou Sun of this great world — both Eye and Soul." 
And if it should startle us from the ordinary state of 
orthodox stagnation, to discover that God and the 
Devil are better friends than we took them to be, and 
that Satan and the Holy Ghost are but one and the 
self- same being; our second thoughts, and the best 
feelings of rational piety, will, I am sure, admonish 

5 



98 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

us — how much more worthy of God it is, to be per- 
suaded (if we be persuaded that there is a God at all), 
that he exists in and through all things ; that he 
never had, nor can have, an enemy, either as an op- 
ponent of his will, or a rival of his power. 

But that all the names that have been given to 
him, are but names and personifications of his differ- 
ent supposed attributes, as lovely in Spring, power- 
ful in Summer, benificent in Autumn, and terrible in 
Winter. 

Which is no more than what the more intelligent 
of the Pagan world confessed to be the great secret 
truth, at the bottom of all their Pagan rites. 

Etc Zevg eig Atdrjg eig H/Uoe, etg Aiovvoog, 
Eig Oeog ev Txavreooi : 

One Jupiter, one Pluto, one Sun, one Dio^ysius. 
It is but one and the self-same God in them all. So 
that whatever be the name, God or Devil, Christ or 
Belial, Satan or Holy Ghost, Demon or Angel, Saint 
or Fiend : ' be it a Spirit of Health or Goblin dam- 
ned, — bring with it airs from Heaven, or blasts from 
Hell: be its intents wicked or charitable,' — all are 
but the varied God: they are one and the self-same 
God, who is above all, and through all, and in us all. 

And this is no less than Christians themselves 
(when they would own the truth) have owned, by their 
adoption of that Pagan sentiment: 'Whether shall I 
go from thy spirit, or whether shall I flee from thy 
presence. If I ascend up into Heaven, thou art there : 
if I go down into Hell, thou art there also.' 

We shall no longer wonder that upon that thorough 
understanding of the original meaning and derivative 
sense of words, which is my object in these lectures 
to adduce, that God and the Devil should prove to be 
but one and the self-same being — that is, the same 



THE DEVIL. 99 

conceit expressed in different words: when we find 
that the words which we have translated Hell and 
Hell-fire, and the worm that never dieth, and the 
fire that never shall be quenched, are, in the original, 
nothing more than names and titles of the supreme 
God, wrested from their original significancy for the 
convenient purpose of terrifying weak minds, which, 
being but once primed with that most wicked senti- 
ment that ever was in the world — namely, that there 
is no harm in believing — would believe — the gospel ! 



VI.-THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUS. 



"There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine 
linen, and fared sumptuously every day" — Luke, xvi. 19. 



The passage which I have repeated out of God's 
holy word is, in the running titles, as at the top of 
our English New Testaments, entitled the parable of 
the Rich .Man and Lazarus. It is frequently referred 
to, and quoted under the title of the parable of Dives 
and Lazarus : Dives being the mere Latin word for a 
rich man, and this Latin adjective being naturalized 
into English, supplies us with a convenient name for 
the rich man, balancing with the name of the beggar 
Lazarus, which literally signifies, the help of God, or 
God help him! the natural exclamation. of pity and 
compassion which we utter on beholding such a miser- 
able and desolate being as Lazarus is described to have 
been. 

It is much to be regretted that the Bible Society 
and the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, of 
whose uprightness of intention and sincerity of heart, no. 
enlightend Christain can entertain a doubt, when they 
professed to circulate the holy Scripture, without note 
or comment, should have overlooked the consideration, 
that those running titles, as well as those little lists 
of the contents which stand at the head of each parti- 
cular chapter are themselves notes and comments, 
which, though convenient enough as an index to the 

L4 i ~ 



ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 101 

reader, to show the subject matter therein contained, 
may have afforded a no less very dangerous and sus- 
picious convenience to the editor to obtrude his own 
impertinence, to forestal the judgment of the reader, 
and bespeak a character and sense for the matter 
referred to, which the matter itself would never have 
suggested, which is not according to the mind of the 
spirit, but according only to the weak, fallible, and 
probably mistaken mind of that unknown and anony- 
mous editor. 

A false gloss may be given, and the whole sacred 
text misrepresented, and set aside from its purpose in 
an inscription, a running title, or a single word, as well 
as in ten thousand. 

Thus the unknown editor, publisher, or printer of 
the New Testament, who has affixed over this portion 
of it the title of the parable of the Rich Man and 
Lazarus, has taken a liberty which he had no right to 
take. The passage itself is nowhere called a parable, 
it has no appearance of being one ; but contrary wise, 
it has all the solemnity, importance and directness of 
sense and meaning which characterises the most 
serious and formal history. The presumption, then, 
which has dared to affix over this lesson the title ot 
the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, might as 
well have entitled the sacred themes which follow it, 
the parable of the Crucifixion of Christ, or the fable, 
or the tragedy, or the comedy, or the farce, "of the 
Resurrection. 

If any one fallible man hath a right to represent 
any portion of God's word as more sacred and solemn 
than it really is, any other man may with as good a 
right represent it as less so. And thus it will turn out 
in a thousand instances, that it is not the word of God, 
that our good Christians are concerned to propagate, 
but their own word all the while, — net that we should 



102 THE EICH MAN AND LAZAKUS. 

submit our understanding to the revealed mind and will 
of God, but that we should submit to their minds ; 
that we should understand just as they understand, 
that we should think as they think, and not pre- 
sume to exercise the faculty of criticism, inquiry, or 
curiosity on our own account. 

Take the passage before us as it stands in the sa- 
cred text, and no part of that text can be further from 
any appearance of parable or allegory. It is as moral, 
as probable in all its circumstances, and in every iota 
as true as the gospel, and as certainly delivered as 
truth by Christ himself. For though a sceptical mind 
may raise objections, and conjure up a thousand 
imaginary difficulties, and inconsistencies, and con- 
tradictions; yet a Christian being once entirely 
persuaded that nothing is impossible to God, confess- 
ing with his mouth the Lord Jesus Christ, and believ- 
ing in his heart that God raised him from the- dead, 
should believe every thing — that is, every thing which 
he is required to believe. 

It is only to bring our reason into due subordina- 
tion and submission to the great author of our reason, 
and to read the gospel with that child-like simplicity, 
and that adoring humility, which saith unto God, 
' What I know not, that teach thou me,' and all its 
apparent difficulties vanish; all becomes intelligible, 
harmonious, beautiful,— the rough places become 
smooth, and the desert rejoices and blossoms like the 
rose, and we are enabled to exclaim with the poet : — 

" Here I am taught how Christ has died, 
To save my soul from Hell ; 
Not all the books on earth beside 
Such heavenly wonders tell." 

And of these wonders, none are more wonderful 
than that awful scene, though not more awful than 
real, which our blessed Savior has set before us, in the 



ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 103 

real and true history of the Rich Man and Lazarus: 
There is no part of the gospel more instructive, as to 
the nature and character of the divine revelation, and 
more congenial to the dispositions and tempers which 
genuine Christianity inspires. A good Christian, as the 
Rev. Mr. Simeon, of Cambridge, says, would not be with- 
out the fear of hell if he might. It is a wholesome 
fear, it is a salutary fear, calculated to prevent their back- 
sliding, and to make them press forward with the more 
earnestness and zeal in their progress towards Sion, 
with their faces thitherward. 

And even when, through the consolations of God's 
Holy Spirit, Christians sometimes rise superior to this 
fear for themselves, there is still a peculiar pleasure 
and unspeakable gratification in contemplating the just 
judgment of God as still impending over the children 
of disobedience ; and thus, by faith, sharing or antici- 
pating that heavenly joy which Lazarus must have 
felt, when 

" From floods of tears to hills of joy, 
The Lord hath set him free ; 
And crowned him with eternal bliss — 
A happy change for he." 

And to find that heavenly bliss enhanced and height- 
ened, as it must have been to his amiable and feeling 
disposition, by being permitted to see it in so strong a 
contrast with the state of his once neighbor and 
acquaintance, the rich man ; and enabled with those 
delightful feelings, which none but a Christian can 
feel, to gratulate his good heart, and to chuckle to 
himself, l He in his lifetime had his good things, and 
I was a beggar ; but now I am comforted, and he is 
tormented.' 

Not that these dispositions are incompatible with 
Christian charity, or at all contrary to that meek and 
forgiving temper which Christianity inspires in all its 



104 THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUS. 

humble followers. God forbid that we should think 
so. Tis the very essence of Christian charity. For 
though Christians are commanded to love their ene- 
mies, to bless them that curse, and to pray for them 
which despitefully use them and persecute them ; yet 
they are not to pray them out of Hell, they are not to 
contravene the justice of the Almighty. But rather, 
when they shall see their former oppressors and per- 
secutors brought into the deepest affliction and distress, 
when they shall see them, as one day they shall do, 
in the flames of Hell, lifting up their eyes in everlast- 
ing torment, and calling for so much mercy as a drop 
of water to cool their burning tongues, but calling in 
vain ; then shall the church triumphers in Heaven 
strike up the louder Hallelujahs, to the praise and 
glory of God, and say, ' We thank thee, O Lord, that 
thou hast judged thus.' 

Hence have we the true meaning of that advice of 
the holy apostle, ' If thine enemy hunger, feed him ; 
if he thirst, give him drink, — for in so doing thou 
shalt heap coals of fire on his head.' 

• But let us confine our meditations to the subject 
in hand. It is a gospel truth — that is, it is as true as 
the gospel, that there certainly was this same certain 
rich man, who was ' clothed in purple and fine linen, 
and fared sumptuously every day.' 

And for this offence of being rich, wearing a blue 
coat and a clean shirt, and eating and drinking as 
every body would do that could get any thing to eat 
and drink, he died, and damnation seized him, body 
and soul too. We should lose the most important 
part of the lesson intended to ourselves, as well as be 
committing an intolerable piece of presumption, should 
we lay such a flattering unction to our souls as to 
suppose that this man must have been peculiarly wick- 
ed. Rather let us take in good part the warning which 



ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 105 

our Saviour has expressly given upon a similar case : 
1 Think ye that this man was a sinner above all 
others ? I tell you nay ; but except ye repent, ye 
shall all likewise perish.' 

The great and general scope of God's word is, ne- 
ver to show us for how great, how capital, how enor- 
mous crimes a man may lose his soul, but for how 
very trifling, how small, how little — nay, for how 
altogether unintended an offence, a righteous God will 
destroy both body and soul in Hell. 

For but one hasty word ! he that in the irritation 
of his temper shall but have said to his brother, ' thou 
fool, shall be in danger of Hell fire.' Nay, for but a 
mistake in an opinion, where it is absolutely impossible 
but that human fallibility should be liable to mistake, 
* He that shall speak a word against the Holy Ghost !' 
— so comfortable is the Holy Ghost, the comforter, so 
forgiving is that heavenly dove, that he hath never 
forgiveness either in this world or in that which is to 
come, which gives us all the reason which we have to 
say with our holy church: 

" Come, Holy Ghost, Eternal God, 
Proceeding from above, 
Both from the Father and the Son, 
The God of peace and love." 

' Tis the peculiar nature of the lambs and doves of 
the gospel to be such a very particular sort of lambs 
and doves, that if a man were not obliged to call them 
lambs and doves, he'd be in great danger of taking 
them for wolves and vultures. 

So the bird that descended from Heaven to com- 
fort Prometheus upon Caucasus was a dove. I've no 
doubt that it was a dove ; it must have been a dove, 
but it ate his liver out. 

That the rich man, then, had been in any sense a 
bad one, is not only not asserted in the sacred text, 



106 THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUS. 

but not implied. He had only been a rich man, and 
lived in consequence, as rich men live, — the very 
' head and front of his offending had this extent' — no 
more. 

That he had not even neglected any positve duties 
of charity or loving kindness to his fellow-men, that 
he had not even been indifferent to the distresses of 
the beggar Lazarus, who had been laid at his gate full 
of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which 
fell from his table, is implied in the curious incident 
which could not otherwise have fallen within the ana- 
logy, that he knew Lazarus personally ; that he knew 
him in a moment, even afar off ; that he recognized 
him by name ; that he recognized him, notwithstand- 
ing the wonderful improvement in his appearance, after 
his sore legs were, I hope, got well, and he was dress- 
ed like a gentleman ; and that he, in a moment, fixed 
on Lazarus, out of all the company of Heaven, as the 
individual that could least refuse the attention that he 
required. 

1 Send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his fin- 
ger in water, and cool my tongue.' 

What could it mean, if it meant less than — Lazarus 
is my old acquaintance ; I know Lazarus ; Lazarus 
will not- forget the kindness he received from me ; or, 
send him to my father's house ; my brothers, my 
whole family will remember Lazarus, — we never ne- 
glected him. 

Now, of all the beggars that will go to Heaven 
when they die, and of all the proud and haughty Lords, 
aristocrats and rich men that will go to the other place, 
how many will there be, able to lift up their eyes, and 
recognize the person, or remember the name of a beg- 
gar ; or be able to look a poor man in the face, and 
say, — now do me a service, Christian. 



ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 107 

Lay a beggar at a rich man's gate, and how long 
will he be allowed to lie there ? and how long will it 
be ere the rich man will know the beggar's name, and 
know him so well as to know him any where. 

' Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.' 
And what o' that ! Why, i'th' name of God, it was 
excellent surgery ; but when the rich men's dogs find 
beggars at their master's gates, among ourselves, the 
dogs bite the beggars : and if the beggars had'nt sore 
legs before they rang at the gate, the dogs will take 
care they shall be sore enough before they get away. 

At least, Sirs, nobody can say that the rich man's 
dogs that licked the beggar's sores were dainty dogs : 
their masters, therefore, must stand acquitted of that 
title to damnation which Heaven might have written 
to his account, could it have been written that the rich 
man's dogs had been better fed than the poor man's 
children. 

But there is a most curious and important ambi- 
guity in the word which our translation has rendered 
dogs ; for in both the Hebrew and Greek, the word 
for dog means a priest or parson ; the priests and 
parsons, in all ages and countries of the world, hav- 
ing always been peculiarly dogmatical, and always on 
the look-out to bark poor beggars into Abraham's bo- 
som, always retainers about the great man's house, 
lending him the use of their evangelical bow-wow to 
keep the beggars at their distance, and make them or- 
der themselves lowly and reverently to all their betters. 

We know, indeed, that St. Paul, in his Epistle to 
the Philippians, calls all the other apostles dogs : and, 
God forbid that I should dispute the authority of St. 
Paul ; no doubt they were dogs, and sad dogs ; only 
one could have wished to know how those apostolic 
dogs would have returned the compliment to the apos- 
tolic chief of sinners. But it is not literally, but only 



108 THE RICH MAN AND LAzARUS. 

metaphorically that priests have such a wonderful 
resemblance to dogs. 

Christ himself is the great shepherd of the sheep, 
and unless the parsons mean to put themselves oh a 
footing with Christ, they must be content to be reck- 
oned as shepherd's dogs, and like shepherd's dogs, 
they always take care to catch hold of the sheep by 
the ears ; lend 'em your ears, and they'll be sure to 
drag you to the slaughter-house. Moreover — 

The bite of a mad dog, we all know, is a very 
frightful thing ; but God knows that the bite of a mad 
parson is the worse bite of the two : in the one case you 
die of hydrophobia, or dread of water ; in the other 
you die of pyrophobia, or dread of fire. While all the 
symptoms of this pyrophobia, by a dreadful analogy, 
bear the closest resemblance to those of the hydropho- 
bia. When the unhappy patient has been pricst-bit- 
te?i, though the wound at first may be very slight, and 
easily healed, yet in longer or shorter time afterwards 
he loses all relish for cheerful company and innocent 
pleasures ; he falls into the greatest dejection oi 
spirits ; he rambles from one kennel of priestcraft to 
another, as if he wished to get more and more bitten. 
Hell fire is continually before his apprehension ; he 
smells brimstone in a play-house, and damnation in 
the smoke of a cigar. At last he begins to foam at 
the mouth, and to bark himself, exactly like the dog 
that first gave him the disease, and dies raving. 

But I am the more inclined to think that the word 
translated dogs, and leading to so unaccountable a 
sense as that the dogs came and licked his sores, 
should have been rendered the parsons ; inasmuch as 
we find that they came about him, beggar as he was, 
for nothing but what they could get of him, — all the 
charity they had to show was with their tongues ; they 
licked the wounds they never cared to heal, and never 



ASTKONOMICOTHEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 109 

was there in the world the nobleman's chaplain, who 
would attend to the poor man's grief, where there was 
nothing to be sucked out of it — that is, if not out of 
the poor man directly, yet out of the rich, by persuad- 
ing them how wonderfully charitable they are; and 
that the poor need no further attentions than such as 
they receive through their ministry. 

' The poor have the gospel preached unto them.' 
Spiritual food will do for the poor. And when this 
noble Lord, noble in nature and in disposition, as well 
as in wealth and title, on the first rumor of the distress 
of the people that had reached him, following the dic- 
tate of his noble heart, would have exclaimed, 'What! 
the people starving, say ye ? good God ! open my 
larder to 'em ; throw down my park wall, give 'em my 
bullocks, the sheep, the pigs, the fowls, build them 
cottages all over my ground, cut it out among them 
in equal portions.' 

But what is the argument of the fawning syco- 
phants of aristocracy. O no, my Lord ; leave us to 
be the ministers of your bounty ; we'll attend to the 
poor for you, and do't at a hundredth part of the ex- 
pense : we'll go from house to house : we'll give 'em 
Bibles and religious tracts, and make 'em so content- 
ed, and so humble, and so setting their affections on 
things above, that you cannot think, my Lord, how 
calmly they'll submit to the dispensations of divine 
providence ; how meekly they'll lie down like rats in 
ditches, and how happy they'll die. Give us the 
money, my Lord, and we'll give them the gospel. 
It's none but Infidels that ever intermeddle with 
politics ; let us be-gospel them enough, and then the lily- 
liver idiots will bear starvation patiently, and they'll die. 
Ah, My Lord, you cannot think how happy they'll die. 

Thus it may seem remarkable that the gospel dogs 
should have paid such peculiar attention to the beg- 



110 THE EICH MAN AND LAZARUS. 

gar's sore legs : but it is no more remarkable than the 
fact, that the gospel dogs among ourselves would have 
nothing to do with their tongues, if it were not for the 
weaknesses in poor people's understandings. 

But we come to the character of the rich man, 
whose utmost extent of crime, — and let it, if you 
please, seem to be a crime, — was, that he did by de- 
puty what he should have done himself, and left his 
knowledge of the state of the poor to be conveyed to 
him by the reports and representations of those rev- 
end dogs, who betray the rich and the great into an 
indifference and neglect of their fellow-creatures, of 
which they never would be guilty, by preaching gos- 
pel and patience to the starving people. 

But this neglect overlooked, there is no evidence 
of a cruel or malicious disposition, nor of any fault 
that could have deserved condemnation in this unfor- 
tunate aristocrat. That he had really not been an 
uncharitable man on earth is evinced by the presump- 
tion a fortiori, from the benevolence and goodness of 
heart which he retained, even in Hell : which induced 
him to pray for the conversion of his five brethren ; 
and so earnestly to entreat, that even a miracle might 
be wrought, though not to give a drop of water to 
himself, yet to save and rescue them. 

Now, Sirs, we are either to have ideas on the mat- 
ter set before us, or 'tis no matter ; the thing that will 
bear to be believed, will bear to be imagined. 

Look, priests, at the picture ye have set before us. 
Look at this grand display of the divine justice. Be- 
hold the man whom an almighty God has endued with 
an eternal existence to undergo eternal misery. 

'For though,' said he, 'I am tormented in this 
flame ; — though all I asked was but the mitigation of 
a drop of water, 



ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. Ill 

And none of you will bid the winter come, 
To thrust his icy fingers in my maw ; 
Nor let my kingdom's rivers take their course 
Through my burned bosom ; nor entreat the north 
To make his bleak winds kiss my parched lips, 
And comfort me with cold, — 

Yet — yet be merciful, where yet thoumayest be mer- 
ciful ! for I have five brethren. Though not to me, be 
merciful to them, and send Lazarus to my father's 
house, that he may testify unto them, lest they also 
come into this place of torment. ' They have Moses 
and the prophets,' said the inexorable tyrant, — let them 
hear them. Thus, with fiend-like malignity, pleased 
to keep up a religion, whose evidence had been 
actually proved to be defective, and which was incapa- 
ble of carrying conviction to the mind, for the purpose 
of getting an excuse to condemn them. ' Nay, Father 
Abraham,' said he, ' but if one went unto them from 
the dead, they would repent.' 

How earnest is his entreaty, how irrefutable his 
remonstrance ; and this, to obtain a benefit for others, 
from which no possible advantage could accrue to him- 
self ; an infinite benefit, for which the party served 
would never know to whom they were indebted for 
the service, which their thanks would never acknowl- 
edge, their gratitude never repay : pitying others, 
though he unpitied, and in an intensity of pain and 
anguish, the remembrance of one hour's endurance of 
which even by his deadliest enemy, would pluck com- 
misseration of his state 

From brassy bosoms and rough hearts of steel, 
From stubborn Turks, and Tartars never trained 
To offices of gentle courtesy. 

Engaged in meditations of benevolence, in pur- 
poses of charity and love, hoping still, when all other 
hoDe was gone; yet — yet to serve mankind! And 



112 THE EICH MAN AND LAzAKUS. 

this man damned ! Eternal God, didst thou ever 
create a better man ? 

But Christian malignity, the most damnable of 
all malignity, must have its hellish gratification. 

The poet Young, the celebrated author of the 
1 Night Thoughts,' thoughts dark as night, as indeed 
they are, has lent the powers of his poetic talent to re- 
alize this frightful picture to our imaginations, and 
given us the very word sin which he supposes this soul 
in Hell would put up its petition to the Almighty : 

" Grant me, Great God, at least, 
This one, this simple, almost no request, 
"When I have wept a thousand lives away, 
When torment has grown weary of its prey, 
When I have raved ten'thousand years in fire, 
Ten thousand thousands, let me then expire." 

But even that relief, like the drop of water to cool 
his tongue, was more than the affordings of infinite 
goodness and mercy ! 

And the setters up of a tale like this talk of blas- 
phemy ! These men call me a blasphemer ! These 
men cast me into a dungeon, imprisoned me in the 
gaols of felony and crime, and bound me in penalties 
beyond my utmost means of payment, that I should 
not blaspheme : These men who have represented the 
character of God as that of so great a monster of in- 
iquity and cruelty, so foul a fiend of mischief and 
malignity, 

" That at the bare imagining, the cheek of man 
Doth blanch to chalky whiteness, and the seated heart 
Knocks at the ribs against the use of nature." 

These men talk of blasphemy ; these men who, if 
such a crime could possibiy exist, are themselves the 
most wicked blasphemers, and the most impious of the 
whole human race : these men would be guardians of 
the morals of the people. 



ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 113 

And mark their honesty, — they preach to the peo- 
ple what they don't believe themselves ; and we have 
the express counsel of Bishop Burnet, in his Latin 
treatise, * De Statu Mortuorum,' addressed to all the 
inferior clergy, to advise and command them to preach 
the doctrine of the eternity of Hell torments ; though 
they knew it to be a lie, because the people must be 
frightened ; because it was the principle of fear alone 
that could tame the people into submission, and make 
them the slaves and cowards, that 'tis most convenient 
to their betters that they should be. 

And what's the political gist on't, Sirs ? 

You'd have reform in parliament, would you ? 
You'd have liberty ; you'd have equal right between 
man and man ; you'd have your property to be your 
own ; you'd have something like justice upon earth. 
And you'd have the beggar Lazarus to help you to it. 
You hope his distresses, his hunger, his wounds, 
would sting him into action, and that he'd have one 
struggle for existence ere he died. Then you must 
drive away the dogs which the rich man sends to dress 
his wounds with their tongues ; to palaver, and coax, 
and lick him into patience. 

Can we wonder that Christians should have been 
as they at this day are, and in all ages of the world 
ever have been, the most wicked, fraudulent, barbarous 
and cruel of all that were ever in the world, when we 
see in their very gospel itself the doctrines, the exam- 
ples, the precepts, that could have no other possible 
tendency than to make them such. 

Look at the Christian description of God ! and 
imagine for us, if ye could, a more sanguinary tyrant, 
a more ferocious villain. Your priests have set up a 
monster, compared with whom Moloch, Juggernaut, 
and the Devil himself, were innocent ; and then talk- 
ed of his infinite goodness and mercy. 



114 THE RICH MAN AND LAzAEUS. 

Look at your gospel rich men, betrayed by the 
dogs that feed upon their bounty, into an oversight of 
the duties that man owes to man ; taught that faith 
will do instead of charity for the rich, and that cruci- 
fied lamb is better than roast mutton for the poor. 

And look at your poor ; your be-gospeled poor, — ■ 
your beggarly Lazarus ; faint and wounded, sick and 
sore ; contented to have their grievances licked over 
by the tongues of the curs and puppies of salvation ; 
content to lie down and die, because it'd be a sin ' to 
covet and desire other men's goods.' 

And, instead of meeting their enemies in the gate, 
with the generous indignation, as far from malice as 
from fear, that would say, ' D'ye think we'll starve and 
die to please you, we'll see you dainrCd first.' They 
put the cart before the horse, and seem to say, ' O no, 
we'll starve and die first ; and then, through God-a- 
mighty's mercy, we shall see you damned afterwards. 

Pretty amiable babes of grace and sucklings of the 
gospel ; they'll never resist the powers that be ; they'll 
keep out of broils on earth ; the broil they long for is 
an everlasting broil. 

They wouldn't say to the rich man, — let us live 
as well as you : give us but fair jplay, and toe are 
friends. But they prefer to rot on dunghills, fester- 
ing in malignity, and glutting the cooking of a cowardly 
revenge by meditating how eternally cruel, and how 
everlastingly spiteful they can be : and all this, and 
all the vices besides which afflict society, are owing 
solely to the clergy: and to that horrible madness 
with which the clergy, for their aggrandizement, have 
bitten the people. Lend me your aid, Sirs, in the 
glorious war in which we are engaged, to drive away 
the dogs, of Hell, and we shall have no more beg- 
gars lying down and dying at rich men's gates, and 
no more rich men indifferent to the griefs and suffer- 



ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 115 

ings of the poor. We shall hear no more of an imag- 
inary Hell in another world, and have no more of a 
real Hell in this. Bu+ good feeling, kind-heartedness, 
and mutual respect of man for man, of the very highest 
for the very lowest, will prevail over all the world, — 
the true millenium of universal brotherhood among men 
will arrive, — and we — we alone, who shall have treat- 
ed the Christian religion, and every thing which bears 
the jiame of religion, with the contempt and hatred that 
it merits, shall have hastened the arrival of that 
millenium. 

Delenda est Carthago. 



VII -THE DAY OF TEMPTATION IN THE 
WILDERNESS. 



1 Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said : It 
is a people that do err in their hearts, for they have not known my 
ways, — unto whom I swear in my wrath that they should not enter 
into my rest' — Psalm xcv. 10. 



If ever one were disposed to deny that men are 
rational beings, and to think with the melancholy 
Jacques, that asses, dogs, and mules, are their supe- 
riors, it is, when one reflects, that in a hundred 
thousand churches and chapels, there are millions of 
these self-called rational beings, who will be mutter- 
ing this sort of language, and think that they are pay- 
ing the highest homage to God, by doing so. 

For what poor Devil d'ye suppose they could 
mean was it who was in the fret for forty years ; and 
who swore, 'and swore in his wrath V Ask them: 
you have their answer, — ' He is the Lord our God, 
and we are the people of his pasture, the sheep of his 
hands.' Sheep, indeed! No! They are no sheep; 
it is a slander on the brute creation to call them 
sheep, — no sheep on earth were ever half so sheepish, 
— no creatures that ever God created did ever so 
abuse the powers and faculties he gave them, as the 
things who have imagined a Deity, as if for the sake 
of insulting him, and imagined him to be such as the 
meanest of themselves would be ashamed of being; 



THE DAY OF TEMPTATION IN THE WILDERNESS. 117 

ascribing to his glory and honor a character that 
would disgrace a scarecrow in a garden. 

'Tis of their God, of him that made them, that 
they tell us, that * Forty years long was he grieved 
with that generation,' and said: Nor was saying 
enough for him, but he swore : . of which swearing the 
apostle tells us, that because he could swear by no 
greater, he swore by himself. And so God swore by 
God, that they should never enter into his rest. 
And 'tis on this text that the Holy Father, Origen, 
with an amiable inconsistency, builds his doctrine of 
the non-eternity, or only temporary continuance of 
the torments of the damned: his argument being, 
that inasmuch as God swore in his wrath, that they 
should never enter into his rest, — that very swearing 
is proof that they most certainly shall enter intohisrest : 
because, when he swore that they should not, that was in 
his rage : and 'tis not to be expected that he should stand 
to it in his cooler moments. And these men call us 
blasphemers. 

I would relieve them of this mystery of iniquity : 
I would disembarrass them of this reproach of human 
understanding; I would point out a latent significancy, 
where none of their preachers have been able to do 
so, which shall rescue the character of the Psalmo- 
graph from the opprobrium of ever having intended 
such idiotcy as the literal sense presents, and prove 
to you that there was no such forty years' grieving, 
no wrath, no swearing, no angry God, and no rebel- 
lious people; and no occurrence or existence of any 
such events, or circumstances as ignorance has per- 
suaded itself, and priestly pride and cunning would 
persuade others, had existed. 

The solution of this problem will bring us to the 
conclusion of our analysis of the subject matter of the 



118 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

five boots called the Pentateuch — i. e., Genesis, 
Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. 

Genesis, referring to a cosmogony, or imaginary 
'creation of the World. 

Exodus, to an equally imaginary coming up of the 
Stars from below the horizon, their house of bondage, 
into the regions of the milky way, the land flowing 
with milk and honey. 

Leviticus, the book of priestcraft, or directions to 
the priests for the conducting of the mysteries, rites 
and ceremonies, necessary to overawe and overreach 
the understandings of the bearded and whiskered 
babies and sucklings of salvation. 

Numbers, the book of allegorical arithmetic. 

Deuteronomy, so called from Sevrepog No/zo^, 
second sense, the book of double entendre, in 
which one thing is said and another intended : and it 
is not the first, but the second, — a deep and hidden 
sense, which the wise are to look for in this enigmati- 
cal treatise. 

It being the principle on which all these books 
have been written, that 'none of the wicked shall 
understand, but the wise shall understand.' 

And 'tis a more than curious analogy, which will 
strike the observers of the latent science contained in 
these five sacred books, how curiously they answer in 
character to the five first rules of arithmetic. 

Genesis, is Addition ; a mere adding together of a 
succession of stories, which lose nothing in the telling. 

Exodus, is Subtraction ; a drawing out or taking 
away of the chosen people from the remainder. 

Leviticus, is Multiplication; of which all the 
benefit goes to the clergy. 

Numbers, is Division ; the whole book presenting 
no other reason for having that title, than its detailing 
the divisions of the tribes of Israel. 



THE DAY OF TEMPTATION IN THE WILDERNESS. 119 

Deuteronomy, is Beduction ; in which the human 
understanding, following the letter, is reduced to the 
lowest degree of degradation and ignorance ; or, per- 
ceiving the mystic sense and significancy, is brought 
back to the first principles of astronomical science. 

It is certain, however, absolutely certain; and in 
this respect we indulge no conjecture, and stand on 
no ground less firm and sure than that, than which 
there is no ground of truth more firm and sure to man : 
That there is no evidence to make out the shadow of 
a title of any particular nation, race or people, to any 
particular property, or peculiar relationship to the sub- 
jects or heroes of those sacred books. They are not 
Jewish books : the people called Jews among our- 
selves, and pretending to be descendants of the race of 
Israel, have no more to do with these books, have no 
more part nor lot in the matter, and are no more de- 
scended from the entities of which those books treat, 
than they are from the inhabitants of the Moon. 
While there is evidence, and it is certain, that among 
every nation, language, people, and race of men upon 
earth, that ever possessed, or pretended to possess, 
religious legends of any sort, — those religious legends 
were precisely of the same sort as these, told precisely 
the same sort of story, with the same views and ends. 

Every nation upon earth has had its Book of 
Genesis, or fabulous creation of the world; created, 
as we may be sure their priests would persuade them, 
with a peculiar view to give origination, consequence, 
and dignity, to no nation but themselves. So that 
it was no peculiar bit of Jewish impudence, which we 
meet with in that humble prayer of their prophet 
Esdras: .'O Lord God, of Abraham, of Isaac, and of 
Jacob, thou madest the world for our sakes only ; 
but as for all other people which sprang from Adam, 
thou hast said that they are nothing, and hast likened 



120 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

them unto spittle, and to a drop which falleth from a 
bucket.' 

Every nation upon earth had, in like manner, its 
Book of Exodus, or fabulous legends, which supplied 
the place of a history of the supposed origination of 
their line of ancestry. The Odyssey of Homer, the 
JEneis of Virgil, are each of them Books of Exodus, 
detailing the supposed wanderings and sufferings, 
bondages and comings out of bondage, of the imagi- 
nary founders or fathers of the Greek and Eoman 
nations, — with the only difference, that they are bet- 
ter Exoduses, more congruous with themselves, more 
within the limits of poetical probability, though not 
more true than the Mosaic Exodus. 

Thus that of Greece begins : — 

' The man for wisdom's various arts renowned, 
Long exercised in woes : muse resound ; 
Who, when his arm had wrought the destined fall 
Of sacred Troy, and raised her Heaven-built wall, 
Thro 1 various climes with ceaseless ardour strayed, 
Their manners noted, and their realms surveyed.' 

But the whole argument of the iEneis may be 
read as a poetical version of the contents of the 
Books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuter- 
onomy. 

' Arms, and the man I sing, who forced by fate, 
And haughty Pharaoh's Unrelenting hate, 
Expelled and exiled, left the Egyptian shore, 
Long labors both by sea and land he bore ; 
And in the doubtful war, before he won 
The promised land, and built the destined town, 
His banished Gods restored to rites divine, 
And settled sure succession in his line, 
From whence the race of Alban fathers come, 
And the long glories of majestic Rome.' 

No man, whose understanding were two degrees 
above idiotcy, would for a moment think that there 



THE DAY OF TEMPTATION IN THE WILDEENESS. 121 

was a word of truth in either of these Exoduses, or 
that they were ever intended to pass for truth. 

The Exoduses, of more barbarous nations, are 
precisely of the same character, less artful and poeti- 
cal, but not on that account more probable or more 
respectable. 

Nor would a sensible man for a moment think of 
ascribing the wonderful resemblance of the general 
character of these Exodes, to so childish a conceit as 
the supposition, that the very silliest of them had a 
foundation in fact and real history, and that all the 
rest were plagiarisms, and borrowed from that original. 

It is not the sameness of character and closeness of 
resemblance of the pretended histories and derivations 
of nations, which presents any difficulty of solution 
to the reflecting mind: a moment's reflection admonish- 
ing us, that all men having the same physical organ- 
ization, and receiving ideas only from the same sort 
of impressions on their five senses, the difficulty 
would have been to imagine how there might, or pos- 
sibly could have been, any material difference in their 
religious fables. 

The tales of the nursery, the lullabies that put 
children to sleep, and the wonderments that frighten 
them into good behavior, are the same from China 
to Peru ; because man's childish nature is the same. 

The same love of the marvellous, the same desire 
and wish to be imposed on, and the same intolerant 
pride and vanity which makes a fool ready to murdei 
a man rather than have the pretty tale which he once 
took to be true, shown to be a fable, or explained to 
some sense in which he had not been able to under- 
stand it, accounts for the sameness of the supersti- 
tions of human animals, from the Ganges to the 
Thames, from the squeeling savages of the woods to 
the Psalm-singing ourang-outangs of the cities. 

6 



122 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

Nothing could be too wonderful to be true, and 
'nothing was impossible to God,' where sufficient 
apologies for the grossest sense which the ignorant 
could attach to the allegories under which the learned 
were driven to protect the feebleness of infant science. 

Thus the first man of mind, the first who rose to 
an intellectual ascendency over the barbarous herd, 
were driven into priestcraft by necessity of self- 
preservation. The he was demanded from them, 
whether they would or not. They were called on to 
give an account, to the savages, of their ancestry and 
history, where no vestige, no memorial, had marked a 
trace of the wanderings and starvations, wars and 
victories, of generations that had gone by, as trace- 
less as the pathway of the keel through the waves. 

But the savages must be satisfied, — and thjs toma- 
hawk and the scalping knife would have avenged the 
disappointment of their vanity. Had the truth been 
told them, or anything like truth, they could not have 
stood it; they could not have borne it, — they must 
have a history ; the more marvellous and impossible, 
the more evangelical. And all the poor priest, who 
wished to live, had to provide for, was to lay it on 
thick enough. And hence arose each particular 
nation's Exodus, or book of marvellous history, in 
which their priests resolved the natural curiosity 
which would ask the question : — 

Where did we all come from ? with such an answer, 
when no other could be given, as ' O, you all came 
from a great way off — somewhere beyond the sea.' 
Aye, but how did we get over the sea ? 
Oh, why the sea dried up, and let you through. 
Ye see, that was a very particular sort of sea, it was 
a red sea. 

But when we were come over, how did we get 
any victuals ? 



THE DAY OF TEMPTATION IN THE WILDERNESS. 123 

Victuals ! Oh, why it rained victuals. The nicest 
apple-dumplings and roast mutton you ever ate in 
your life. 

What did you call it ? 

Yes, that was what we called it. What d'ye call 
it was the very name of it ; Manna ! — they called it. 
What d'ye call it. It was angels food. 

And how did we do for clothes ? 

Oh, the clothes that you came out of Egypt with 
were a sort of clothes that never wore out. 

But what did the people say when we came and 
drove them out of their land, and took possession of 
it for ourselves? 

O, you cut their throats ; and then, you know, 
they said nothing. 

But what right had we to do so? 

Ah ! but such religious people as you have no 
occasion to inquire about right, — God Almighty gave 
you a right. 

And where was God Almighty all the while ? 

Why you carried him along with you in a box, 
made of shittim wood. 

Such, Sirs, even such, is the natural genealogy of 
an Exodus. 

To which the Exodus of the people of Mexico is 
so wonderfully similar, that if you had not previously 
suspected me of drawing from some other picture, 
you would have felt, assuredly, that it was none 
other than the Exodus of the Mexicans, that had been 
the original. 

It will not be pretended, I hope, that the inhabi- 
tants of Mexico, who, before their invasion by the 
Spaniards, Pizarro and Cortes, had not heard of the 
existence of either Jew or Christian, could have bor- 
rowed their theology from our Hebrew Pentateuch. 
Yet is their Mexi, the founder of their race, the per- 



124 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

feet counterpart of the Hebrew Moses ; and their 
Supreme God the adorable Vitziputzli, the very fac- 
simile of Jehovah. 

Vitziputzli, the chief Deity of the Mexicans, was 
made of a very precious wood, — he was represented 
under the human shape, with a forehead of a blue 
color, with a blue streak across his nose, extending 
from ear to ear: thus presenting that darling and 
never omitted emblem of all the superstitions upon 
earth, the sign of the cross; and accounting for that 
peculiar physical fact that from one end of the world 
to the other you shall know a believer in the doctrine 
of the cross, by his looking so blue at you ; as if his 
face were the very reflection of the blue nosed Vitzi- 
putzli. 

Vitziputzli was seated in a chair of sky-colored 
blue, and supported by a litter, with four serpents' 
heads at the four corners; under his feet was an 
azure globe, representing the heavens : in his right 
hand he held a snake, the universal emblem of salva- 
tion ; and in his left, a buckler, covered with five 
white feathers, set in the form of a cross. The Mexi- 
cans, to this day, ascribe their settlement in that 
country to the direction of Vitziputzli. The Aborigi- 
nes, the Canaanites, or first inhabitants of the 
country, were believed to have been a set of savages, 
who had no knowledge of the true God, Vitziputzli; 
and these, therefore, were subdued by the Mexicans, 
under the command of Mexi, their captain and law- 
giver ! Their expedition was undertaken at the com- 
mand of their God, who promised them success. 
Mexi marched at their head, while four priests earn- 
ed Vitziputzli in a trunk, or chest, made of reeds. 
"Whenever they encamped, they erected a tabernacle 
in the midst of the camp, and placed the ark upon an 
altar. They never marched nor encamped without 



THE DAY OF TEMPTATION IN THE WILDEKNESS. 125 

first consulting this blue-nosed Godhead, and implicitly 
conforming to his directions. Being at last arrived at the 
promised land, he appeared to a priest in a dream, and 
commanded the Mexicans to settle in that part of the 
land where an eagle should be found sitting on a fig 
tree, growing out of a rock. The priest related his 
vision; and the place being found by the signs pre- 
appointed, they there laid the foundations of Mexico. 
This celebrated city was divided into four quarters or 
districts, and in the middle was placed a tabernacle 
of Vitziputzli, till a proper temple should be built to 
receive him. In the mean while, the divine Vitziput- 
zli was content to sit upon his blue mercy seat, and 
to hide his blue forehead and blue nose behind a blue 
curtain. 

And is there not criticism enough in man's nature 
to urge him to demand why and wherefore 'tis, that in 
like manner, even the God of Israel should discover 
such an extraordinary attachment to the blue color ; 
that, in the furniture of his Holy of Holies, and the 
garments of his priests, we have still such a predomi- 
nance of the blue color, that he has his blue curtains, 
blue ribbons, blue robes, blue carpets, aye, and blue 
bonnets. 

And the Lord spake unto Moses, as a board- 
ing-school Miss would give orders to a man-milliner. 
'And the Lord commanded Moses, and he made 
the robe of the Ephod all of blue.' Exod. xxxix. 
22. And they cut the gold into wires to work it into 
the blue, — and the veil itself of the Holy of Holies 
was a veil of blue, and purple, and scarlet of cunning 
work, with cherubim upon it ; and see, said God, 
' See that thou make all things according to the pat- 
tern.' Heb. viii. 5. And according to what pat- 
tern ? according to the pattern of things showed thee in 



126 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

the Mount ; according to the pattern of things in 
the heavens, are the answers to that question. 

And thus have we a blue curtain, hung upon four 
pillars, overlaid with gold, and presenting the figures 
of cherubim of cunning work, according to the pat- 
tern of things in the heavens. 

And are we to be so stone blind ; are we so to re- 
nounce all faculties of reason which constitute our 
rational nature, as to oblige our preachers of the gos- 
pel, by not discovering that this blue curtain, with 
cherubim upon it, was and could have been nothing 
else than an astronomical eidouranion, an Orrery, or 
picture exhibiting the relation of the heavenly bodies, 
precisely of the same nature as Walker's Orrery, 
which you may see every year, and any where, where 
astronomical lectures are given, with the advantage of 
a suitable astronomical apparatus ? 

And here have we the reasons and proprieties of 
that prevalence of the blue color, the color of the 
canopy of Heaven, and scarlet, and gold, the color, 
of the planets, and constellations, enwrought, em- 
bossed, and set upon that blue, not only in the veil 
of the Holy of Holies, and in all the furniture of the 
tabernacle, but in the dresses of the priests, ' who 
ministered in holy things, and served unto the like- 
ness of things in Heaven.' That is, the priests 
dressed themselves up in the imaginary characters of 
the constellations and planets, — and one personated 
the planet Mercury, another Jupiter, another the 
Sun or the Moon, others the twelve signs of the 
Zodiac, others the constellations without the Zodiac ; 
exhibiting in their dresses, by the golden spangles 
set upon a blue ground, the exact position of the 
Stars in the constellations, which each in his particu- 
lar function severely represented. 

And the Lord God himself, who made heaven and 



THE DAY OF TEMPTATION IN THE WILDERNESS. 127 

earth, the sea, and all that in them is; even God 
Almighty, the God of Israel was none other than the 
master of the show, who always acted himself the 
part of the leader of the band, or leading constellation ; 
and whose language that of our text, is : — 

' Forty years long was I grieved with this genera- 
tion, and said : It is a people that do err in their 
hearts, for they have not known my ways,' — and of 
which the whole and only meaning is : — 

Forty years have I been manager of this company 
of strolling players, and have travelled up and down 
the country with them, with our portable theatre, 
and yet are they not perfect in their characters. 
They err in their understanding, for they have not 
known my ways, — they do not understand the 
science, and are, therefore, continually crossing 
the orbits, and making eclipses, occultations, and 
turning day into night, and night into day : for 
they have not known my ways — that is, my courses 
and passages through the signs of the Zodiac. 

And, therefore, the testy manager relieves his 
spleen by swearing at them. He swore in his wrath, 
that they should never enter into his rest — that is, 
when the performance was over, he should keep up no 
acquaintance with them in their individual capacity. 
He should continue to perforin with them before the 
public, but he swore he'd never entertain them at his 
own private lodgings. 

But this curious allegorical rebuke of the chief per- 
former or manager of the itinerant company, for 
' erring in their hearts, because they have not known 
his ways,' is in most curious opposition with a precisely 
similar allegorical rebuke, which the manager of the New 
Testament company gives to his comedians for com- 
mitting precisely the same astronomical mistake ; for 
these players ' also had erred in their hearts, for they 



128 ASTKONOMICO -THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

had not known his ways, — that is, they had not known 
which were respectively the twelve signs of the 
Zodiac, which they themselves were engaged to perso- 
nate. 

Hence, in the 16th of Mathew's gospel, when they 
tempted him, desiring him that he would show them 
a sign from heaven, of the whole meaning of which, 
your preachers of the gospel are as ignorant as they 
are of Arabic, the manager answers them : " O 
ye hypocrites" — that is, "O ye players!" for the 
word hypocrites is not originally of a bad sense, but 
literally means theatrical performers ; ' Ye can discern 
the face of the sky, and can _ye not discern the signs 
of the times? 

To prevent which mistake, on the part of those 
who enter the sanctuary, I have ordered the signs of 
the times to be written under the signs of heaven, in 
order that when you want to see a sign from Heaven, 
you may at the same glance see the signs of the 
times, to which the signs from heaven respectively 
answer; — the Lamb for March, the Bull for April, 
the Twins for May, and so on. 

And here have we the clear solution of the riddle 
that tells, that when Jesus Christ was upon the cross, 
he bowed his head and said, ' It is finished,' and 
immediately the veil of the temple was rent in twain 
— i. e., he made a bow to the audience, he told 'em 
the performance was all over, and .immediately they 
tore down the scenery, and put out the lamps. But 
a day or two after the performance, (as St. Luke in- 
forms us) the manager met two of the company stroll- 
ing into the country, and called them a set of fools 
and stupid fellows for not understanding the piece: — 
' Ought not Christ,' said he ' to have suffered these 
things, and to enter into his glory V And beginning 
at Moses, and all the prophets, he expounded unto 



THE DAY OF TEMPTATION IN THE WILEERNESS. 129 

them, in all the Scriptures the things concerning him- 
self — i. e., the character he was to act ; the tricks he 
was to perform ; the speeches he was to deliver ; and 
how he was to go through the dying scene, and then 
to be pulled up into glory, amidst a grand discharge 
of sky-rockets. 

And this explanation, you will observe, he gives 
them, after he was theatrically dead and buried ; an 
absolute demonstration that the whole gospel was a 
theatrical performance from first to last. For surely, 
Sirs, we must have put the nightcap on our wits, 
could we dream that there had been any real and right 
earnest death, and bona fide dying in the matter, when 
the dead man, the corpse that should have been, meets 
us in the street ; we stare like Hamlet at his father's 
ghost, and he cries, ' O ye fools ! fools ! fools !' 

But when the hypocrites — that is, the players — 
desired of the manager that he would show them a 
sign from Heaven, they are said to have tempted him. 
Good God ! what sort of temptation was it, merely to 
ask him to show them one of the signs of the Zodiac. 
' As their fathers tempted him, proved him, and saw 
his works.' And all this 'tempting him,' 'proving 
him,' and ' seeing his works,' was ' in the day of temp- 
tation in the wilderness.' 

Now, Sirs, what is the meaning of all this ? Can 
your priests or preachers tell you ? No. Should you 
put the inquiry to them, would they answer you ? 
No. Tney would treat you as a blasphemer and an 
infidel for presuming to ask them. And e'en the 
greatest fool and dunce that relieves his idleness by 
sleeping in the gospel shop, will give himself airs of 
superiority over you, and treat you as an impious 
wretch for presuming to think that ' God cannot be 
tempted of any man,' and that this cursing, swearing, 
fretful Yahou, who swore in his wrath, speaks a little 

6* 



130 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

bit more in the character of a testy mountebank, scold- 
ing his vagabond company in a country barn, than 
in such a character as a wise and good man would 
venture to imagine of any one whom it was his duty 
to respect. 

But what is the day of temptation and of provocation? 
The literality of the words themselves will guide us 
to the interpretation : it is the day of performance of 
the astronomioal pantomime — the time of making as- 
tronimical observations, and of provoking provocation, 
or rather convocation or calling up, and grouping to- 
gether of the stars which spangle the blue arch of 
night. 

And the wilderness literally is, and never was, 
and never meant any other, than that wild and con- 
fused jumble of the stars, of which you can make 
neither head nor tail, till you have learned to convoke, 
or call them together, and group them into their res- 
pective constellations. 

And then you will understand that the •vna&nn 
Benui Yesreile, or Children of Israel, literally, re- 
ally, and from the first use of that term in the ancient 
Phoenician language meant the Stars of Heaven ; 
Yesreile being the Phoenician name of the planet 
Saturn, of whom all the celestial bodies within the 
range of his immense orbit are the children. 

And among these children of Israel, the Lord, or 
the Lord God of Israel, is the leading constella- 
tion, or that which brings them up out of the* land of 
Egypt, out of the house of bondage — that is, not 
out of any real land of Egypt, or house of bond- 
age, but from below the horizon. 

In the new allegory, this leading constellation is 
the Lamb ; and consequently, Jesus Christ, who is 
the Lord God of the New Israel, is uniformly called 
the Lamb of God. 



THE DAY OF TEMPTATION IN THE WILDERNESS. 131 

But in the old allegory, there was no small dif- 
ficulty in the reckoning, whether it was the Ram or 
the Bull that should be considered as the leading con- 
stellation, and therefore entitled to be called l the Lord 
God of Israel.' 

But whether it were the one or the other, — the 
grand, the all-essential predication and definition of i the 
Lord God of Israel,' was, that it must be he that was 
the first or leading constellation, — and he, and he alone, 
to whom must appertain the exclusive honor of bring- 
ing up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, 
out of the house of bondage. 

Hence the name and title of the Lord God of Israel, in 
all its formal annunciations, is continually accompanied 
with this astronomical explanation : 

1 1 am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out 
of the land of Egypt — out of the house of bondage.' 

So when Aaron set up his calf in Horeb, the for- 
mal proclamation of the Godhead of that calf was, 
' These are thy Gods, O Israel, which brought thee 
up out of the land of Egypt.' So when Jeroboam set 
up his calf in Bethel, the proclamation of its divinity 
was, ' Behold thy Gods, O Israel, which brought thee 
up out of the land of Egypt.' The name of God, 
which brought the children of Israel out of Egypt, 
always being plural (Elohim), and spoken of in the 
plural pronoun, these, itbatbiia^ssna mx « these are thy 
Gods, O Israel,' as referring to the considerable num- 
ber of stars which make up the whole group or con- 
stellation, whether it was the Bull or the Earn that 
stood at the point where the Ecliptic crosses the 
Equator ; and which, consequently, does bring up the 
children of Israel out of Egypt and, therefore, is the 
Lord their God, whose office and character was repre- 
sented by a priest, dressed in a large wig of white 
wool, to represent the Lamb ; and a mask, with fiery 



132 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

eyes, to represent the Sun shining in his strength ; 
and a golden girdle to represent the Zodiac ; and seven 
candlesticks to represent the seven planets ; and 
twelve stones set upon the girdle, to represent the 
twelve signs of the Zodiac ; and his boots or shoes 
like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace, to 
represent the heat made by the Sun's march through 
the Heavens. While the dresses of the inferior per- 
formers are described as suited to their respective 
astronomical characters by the holy prophet Isaiah, 
with a ridiculous minuteness : * the bravery of their 
tinkling ornaments, their cauls, and round tires like 
the Moon ; the chains, and the bracelets, and the 
mufflers ; the rings and the nose jewels, and the man- 
tles, and the wimples, and the crisping pins.' And 
on some occasions, when the performance was very 
badly got up, we find the manager not merely swear- 
ing in his wrath, * that they should not enter into his 
rest,' but declaring, that 'then shall the Moon be con- 
founded, and the Sun ashamed,' — that is, the Moon 
would forget her part, and the Sun would get hissed 
off the stage ;' which, if it be not the true and only 
meaning of this holy gibberish, I am sure that there is 
not a clergyman on earth that can tell what the 
meaning is, or would attempt to do so, to any man 
that might put him to the question. And as for the 
scenery of these astronomical pantomines, which we 
may guess rarely equalled that of Richardson's booth 
at Bartholomew Fair, — it was generally painted by the 
manager himself. So that ' the side scenes declared 
the glory of God, and the firmament showed his handy- 
work.' - 

But that the Aretz Jfetzrim scene, which 
we absurdly take to be the real country known 
by the name of Egypt, on this terraqueous globe, 
never meant any thing of the kind, but referred only 



THE DAY OF TEMPTATION rN THE WILDERNESS. 133 

to that portion of the heavens which is below the 
horizon, and therefore in a state of darkness and sha- 
dow. And that the children of Israel are the stars 
in the eternal game of follow-my -leader, brought up 
out of that dark region, when they rise in the East, 
and going down again into that Egypt when they set 
in tiie West, is betrayed in the fact, which a very or- 
dinary degree of criticism, applied to this mystical 
language will observe. For the children of Israel, 
and Israel, and the Stars, and the Heavens, are used 
as perfectly synonimous and interchangeable terms ; 
and the Israel of God, the people of God, and the 
children of light, — aye, and the Father of Light 
(which our brains would be of no use to us could they 
possibly mean anything else than the Sun and Stars), 
are exegetical of each other. So that either Moses or 
Isaiah, or any one of the performers in the astronomi- 
cal allegory, meaning to say, '•Hear, O Israel,'' would 
say, ' Hear, O Heaven,'' and for, ' Sing, O Israel? 
would say, ' Sing, O HeavensS And ' there shall 
come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out 
of Israel,' for ' a Star shall appear in the Heavens,' 
and the constellation called the Sceptre, (as there ac- 
tually is the Sceptre, and the Crown, too, among those 
constellations) shall rise up, at its proper latitude of 
rising in the visible heavens. 

No such persons, as of Israel and Jacob, nor of any 
descendants of such persons, ever having existed upon 
earth ; but owing the supposition of their existence 
only to that impatient ignorance which would never 
suffer its first impressions to be corrected, however 
foolish and erroneous they might be ; but would take 
it to be piety, and virtue, and religion, and goodness, 
to believe in a wrathful, lying, cursing, swearing, and 
perjuring deity : and would say of a creature, who 
really appears, on the literal showing of their Bible 



134 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

itself, to have been nothing else but a mountebank, 
travelling about the country with a puppet-show, 
which he called Heaven and Earth, ' He is the Lord 
our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the 
sheep of his hands.' And all this rather than exercise 
so much reason as to perceive what a rational child 
might perceive, that wherever the name God, or Lord 
God, or the Almighty occurs, either in the Old or 
New Testament, from beginning to end, — it is the per- 
son of the astronomic priest himself that is alone in- 
tended. And if you would take your Bibles, and with 
your pens erase the words God, or Lord, whenever 
they occur, and write priest, or bishop, instead, and 
read it with that clue, you would discover what other- 
wise you must be forever ignorant of— its true meaning. 



VIIL-AHAB, OR THE LYING SPIRIT. 



" And he said, Hear thou, therefore, the word of the Lord : I saw the 
Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of Heaven standing by 
him, on his right hand and on his left. And the Lord said, Who 
sliall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth 
Gilead ? And one said on this manner, and another said on that 
manner. And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the Lord, 
and said, 1 will persuade him. And the Lord said unto him, 
Wherewith ? And he said, I will go forth, and 1 will be a lying 
spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt 
persuade him, and prevail also: go forth, and do so." — 1 Kings, 
xxii. 19—22. 



There's a lesson of moral virtue for us, my breth- 
ren. Now ! mark trie sincerity of the Christian cha- 
racter, and see if they're not frightened at the text of 
their own book, before they've heard a word more than 
the text itself. God is graciously pleased to instruct 
us in the various duties of life, not merely by precept, 
but by example also. So that a man has only to 
make the Bible the rule of his actions, and to conform 
his whole life and conduct to that perfection which 
shines forth in every page of this blessed book, and 
he will be sure to acquire that high sense of justice, 
and that sincere regard to truth, which is invariably 
found to characterize a Christian. 

But all I want to know is, — what that wicked man, 
King Ahab, thought of such divine truth, and of the 
truth-speaking God, the covenant-keeping God, the 



136 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

faithful God ; and of his holy prophets, and of his holy 
spirit, which inspired his holy prophets, and set them 
lying at such a rate, that Hell and the Devil found 
themselves outdone at their own game. 

What would I have given to have exchanged a word 
with this sincere believer in the interval of his receiv- 
ing his death- wound and his death, on the day when, 
relying on the truth of God, as delivered to him in his 
holy word, and vouched by the concurrent testimony 
of his holy prophets (there were four hundred of them), 
all of whom, in the plenitude of divine inspiration, 
had sworn to him by God, that his safety was guaran- 
teed by the promise of that God, who is not a man, 
that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should 
repent : and that God had said, ' Go up to Ramoth 
Gilead, for thou shalt prosper ; the Lord of Hosts is 
with thee, the God of Jacob is thy refuge, — the Lord 
shall deliver Ramoth Gilead into thy hands, and bring 
thee back a glorious conqueror.' 

But how was that promise fulfilled, when ' a cer- 
tain man drew a bow at a venture, and smote the 
King of Israel between the joints of the harness, and 
the blood ran out of the wound into the midst of the 
chariot, and he said to the driver of his chariot, s Turn 
thine hand and carry me out of the field, for I am 
wounded V 

" The fainting soul stood ready winged for flight, 
And o'er his eyeballs swam the shades of night." 

So — so keeps God his promises of salvation. So 
— so, in that deathful moment, might one have address- 
ed him in the language of St. Paul to Agrippa, ' King 
Ahab, believest thou the prophets ? I know that thou 
believest.' As Ahab could not but have answered, 
' Ah, had I not have been a believer, I had not been be- 
trayed to this destruction ; I relied upon the word of 



AHAB, OR THE LYING SPIRIT. 137 

God, and thus — thus !' Hold there, King Ahab, hold. 
None of your blasphemies. I know what you would 
say : but they won't stay here to hear it : the Lord is 
righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works. 

So he died ! he died ! at even, and one washed 
his chariot in the pool of Samaria, and the dogs licked 
up his blood ; and the blessed Scriptures says that that 
was 'According to the word of the Lord.' But our 
imaginations are left to supply the essential sequel of 
the scene, when the lying spirit returned back again 
to the court of Heaven to give an account of the suc- 
cess of his divine mission. ' Halloo ! Yahouh, we've done 
for Ahab ; we've gospelled him ; we've made dog's 
meat of him ; the Devil's got him. But had ye, God, 
seen how the parsons lied for't — how devilishly they 
lied — how natural it came to 'em — I'd only to hitch 
'em off the spring, and their clackers ran till their 
weights were down.' 

' Say ye so — say ye so, 'said God the Almighty, 'then 
well done, thou good and faithful servant ; enter thou 
into the joy of thy Lord.' 

But let me not seem to be profane ; no sensible 
man on earth is intentionally further than I am from 
being so. The only liberty I take, is, that which a 
necessity of my understanding forces upon me. I 
have ideas ; I am troubled with thick forthcoming fan- 
cies : I have an imagination, and cannot, therefore, 
read my Bible, as good Christians can, without hav- 
ing ideas. I know that it would be all right enough, 
if one could lay one's ideas aside, and not think at all 
on what one reads : but thinking, and imagining, and 
criticising, step following step, and thought succeed- 
ing thought, plays the Devil with believing. 

I have no doubt, — God a'-mighty knows that I 
have no doubt, — that King Ahab was a very wicked 
man, and richly deserved the punishment he met. 



138 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

But how could he be other than a very wicked man ? 
He was a king, and the best man on earth would be 
spoiled if you made a king of him. Moreover, he kept 
four hundred regular clergy to take care of his royal 
conscience. No wonder, then, if his conscience should 
get into a very royal condition at last, — ' too many 
cooks? you know, and here were enough, not merely 
to damn his Majesty, but to damn the whole nation. 
He kept 'em, as all other parsons are kept, at the na- 
tion's expense : not quite, though, to the expense of 
9,920,000Z. a year, because that nation was not quite 
so religious as the clergy could wish. Besides, they 
had only the Old Testament to keep up, whereas 
Goramtty has given us a couple of his divine Revela- 
tions, — and we have got to support the Old Testament 
and the New, too. One more of his Divine Revela- 
tions, and we should go to Heaven at such a rate that 
there'd be no living upon Earth. 

King Ahab kept four hundred parsons to perform 
divine service round his royal person. Yes ! he did ; 
and a pretty service they served him at last. They 
brought his soul into a state of grace, I'll answer for't. 
They got him ripe for glory. They dished his im- 
mortal part for the angels, but they dished his body 
for dog's meat : they dished him most completely, — 
they saved his soul — that is, I hope they saved it, but 
dam'd his blood. 

But the most curious feature of character in these 
holy men of God, who speak as they were moved by 
the Holy Ghost, is, that they were all of the evangel- 
ical order : they preached extempore : they were pecu- 
liarly spiritual, they dealt out the effusions of the 
Holy Ghost, neat as imported : but, like all the rest 
of their order, they would never suffer themselves to 
be questioned : they were accounted ministers of peace 
— yet urged they men on to feuds and battle. Their 



AHAB, OR THE LYING SPIRIT. 139 

words were smoother than butter, yet were they very 
swords : they spake of comfort, joy and glory, only to 
bring the fool that heeded them to the dogs. 

But let me not seem to cast a shade on this sacred 
subject, which belongs not to it! I could not darken 
it if I would, — I would not, for the world. My only 
and most solemn protest is solely directed against those 
wicked and deceitful preachers of the gospel, who, 
when they meet with a difficult and perplexing passage, 
either skip it over entirely, and so contrive to keep 
people in ignorance of what the true character of the 
Bible is, or invent hypothesis, and pretend figurative 
or parabolical senses ; to apologize, and screen, and 
protect their word of God from the judgment which 
the text itself, in its naked deformity, would inevita- 
bly incur. 

They would get the Almighty out of the scrape 
if they could ; and so, if they dared to preach out at 
all, their hearers must patiently endure the old song. 

MOCK SERMON. 

' This, my Christian brethren, must be understood 
metaphorically. It was an illustration by way of 
vision, condescendingly afforded to the mind of the true 
prophet, the more strikingly to exhibit the strong delu- 
sion which God, in his righteous dispensation, had al- 
lowed to possess the minds of the false prophets of 
Ahab to lead him to the temporal death which his 
enormous offences had merited. It was a parable, or 
rather a dream.' 

But hold there ! If it were so, then, so is the whole 
gospel a dream from beginning to end. For not a 
word about parable, or metaphor, or metaphorical 
sense, occurs in any relation to this frightful story. It 
is as solemn, as didactic, as positive of term, as plain 
of sense, as probable in itself, and in every iota of it, 



140 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

as likely to have really occurred as the resurrection of our 
Lord Jesus Christ. To believe that, in the literal 
sense, and not to believe this quite as literally, is but 
to make a nose of wax of our own word of God, and 
mould it to the fashion of your fancy. 

It is the subversion of all principles of criticism, 
and all logical equity, if once we are to assume that, 
because a passage may present us with a few difficulties, 
or apparent absurdities, it is to be disposed of at once, 
by a sweeping surrender and conveyance to the pro- 
vince of allegory, vision, or metaphor. It is not more 
improbable in itself, nor more revolting to reason, that 
God, for his just and righteous purposes, should con- 
descend to employ the services of a lying Spirit in 
Heaven, than that he should with equal condescension 
engage his ministers and preachers of the gospel, in 
precisely similar services upon earth. And as for 
what a sceptical mind might insinuate, — ' it will not 
stand to reason ;' If you are to argue in that way, 
I should like to know how much of your divine reve- 
lation would stand to reason ? 

Reason is a besom, that will not merely sweep the 
dust out of your house upon the rock, but 'twill sweep 
away house, and rock, and all. 

A Christian has no right, no security, no safety in 
reasoning. When once a Christian begins to reason, 
he's like a beggar on horseback, — you may guess 
where he'll ride to. He'll put his precious soul into 
pawn ; and, what's worse than all, he'll never pay the 
parson another ha'penny to get it out again. 

The deceit, (the apparent deceit, I should say, 
considering they had the divine authority for what 
they did), practised by the four hundred priests of 
Ahab, was not in nature and character at all dif- 
ferent from that which priests, in all ages, and even 
the Protestant priests to this day, among ourselves, 



AHAB, OE THE LYING SPIRIT, 141 

continue to practise upon the babes and sucklings of 
the gospel. 

Allow me but your recognition of that most just 
principle, that every thing -is what it is, in relation to 
the mind, and to the mind's appreciation of it : that if 
a man's mind were weak and feeble, he ought to have 
it comforted and strengthened ; not insulted, trifled 
with, and trodden on : and that it would become the 
wisdom of the wisest man that ever breathed, if he saw 
a child terrified at the cackling of a goose, to drive 
the goose away and protect the child. Say ye, then, 
what should be said to those cackling tormenters who, 
in every country parish in the kingdom, invite the 
Johnny Raws and Bumpkins from the plow-tail to 
the most comfortable sacrament of the body and blood 
of Christ ; to trap 'em in fo'rt, at last, to the terror of 
an imaginary chance, that by eating and drinking un- 
worthily, they may have eaten and drank damnation 
to themselves ? Was Ahab practised on by a grosser 
or more cruel deceit than this ? 'Tis not what the rea- 
son of a sensible man might admonish him of, that we 
should look to, or what the knowing ones know of 
their damnation-sacrament ; but 'tis what the poor 
booby suffers, who goes into their wolf's den, takes 
them at their word, trembles at the thunder of their 
magic, and shrivels at the casting of their seventh 
bullet. 

' Dearly beloved,' say they. 'Dearly beloved, on 
Sunday next I purpose, through God's assistance, to 
administer to all such as shall be religiously and de- 
voutly disposed, the most comfortable sacraments of 
the body and blood of Christ ; unto which, in God's 
behalf, I bid you all that are here present ; and do be- 
seech you for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, that ye 
will not refuse to come thereto, being so lovingly call- 
ed and bidden by God.' 



142 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUKES. 

1 Well, ' says Johnny Raw, to his own raw understand- 
ing, — ' By God, that's very loving indeed ; and since 
you're so very pressing, and its to be so very com- 
fortable, I'll pay my shilling, and I'll take my break- 
fast of the Lord's supper.' 

Let him do so! and let your sympathy perpend 
the working of his innocent mind, through the process 
and catastrophe of that feast of blood, that supper of 
Thyestes. 

1 That feast of blood, that supper of Thyestes? 
where the principal dish is the master himself at sup- 
per — where? 'Not where he eats, but where he is be- 
ing eaten.' Where so rich is the preparation made 
for that spiritual feast, that when you're come to't, our 
bountiful Lord addresses ye with his ' Welcome, my 
hungry guests^ to the marriage supper of the Lamb. 
But if you get any thing to eat, you must eat me.'' 
Where all is conundrum, quirk, quiddity, and riddle- 
me-ree, beyond the faculty of human wit to unriddle, 
— where, but to come within a guess of what they're 
driving at, you must evitate the sonorous catachresis 
of metonymous periphrases, no less than the cabalisti- 
cal dogmatism of anagogical ratiocination : or other- 
wise you must immolate the apothegmatieal aufrac- 
tuosity of idiopathic sentiment to the supervacaneous 
ponderosity of cacophonous periods, polyphonotis rhe- 
toricisms, andsyncategorimatical collocacion, andcon- 
turbabentur Gonstantinopolitani, immurebilibus soli- 
ciludenibus. 

And then, perhaps, you'll begin to understand 
how you show your love to your Savior, by being so 
glad that he was hanged : by clasping the darling 
gallows that he was gibbeted on to your heart, by 
imagining that you see him spreading out his blood- 
vessels, like the anatomy at the doctor's shop, and by 
imagining, that if the Jews had left a bit of him, no 



AHAB, OR THE LYING SPIRIT. 143 

bigger than the tip of your finger, you yourself would 
have a bite at him. For lack of which, he takes the 
will for the deed ; you do by faith what you cannot do 
in reality. So you eat the bread, and smell the 
cheese, and then you're to say : 

" My God, and is thy table spread, 

And doth thy cup with love o'erflow ? 
Thither be all thy children led, 

And let them all thy sweetness know." 

That table is a snare; that cup is poison ; that 
bread is deadly aconite. Ah, poor fool ! thou didst 
take the sacrament to save thee from damnation, and 
thou art damned for taking it. Thou hast eaten and 
drank unworthily ; thou art guilty of the body and 
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ ; thou hast kindled 
God's wrath against thee; thou nast provoked 
him to plague thee with divers diseases, and sun- 
dry kinds of death, in the beautiful language of Watt's 
hymn : 

" He seals the curse on his own head, 
And makes his own damnation sure." 

There's a comfortable sacrament for you ! There's 
glad tidings of great joy ! What does not the Theo- 
phagist owe to his spiritual pastor and master, who has 
dished him up such a bit of heavenly lamb, with such 
hellish sauce to it. But, Oh ! 

" Farewell, the tranquil mind farewell ! . • 

The pride of innocence, the confidence of virtue, — 
All cheerful looks, all joy of heart, all peace, all hope, farewell !" 

But could none but the weakest of minds, none 
but the illiterate and incapable boor, be thus terribly 
impressed. Alas! the great mind of the poet Cow- 
per sank under this master-stroke of priestly villainy. 



144 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

The great philosopher, Robert Boyle, sank under it. 
I myself have witnessed, in communicants who have 
received the sacraments from my own hands, these 
effects of it upon them. 

And now, forsooth, our holy men of God, full of 
the spirit from on high, which inspired the four 
hundred prophets of Ahab, the goodly fellowship 
of the prophets, you know, have found out for us, 
that we may go up to their spiritual Ramoth-Gilead 
with perfect safety ; and that there's no such 
danger of eating and drinking unworthily, as weak 
minds, misunderstanding some of the expressions 
used in those holy mysteries, have been needlessly 
alarmed at. 

' But well,' says Johnny Raw, not quite so raw 
as he was before there was so much talk in the world 
about these here Atheists, the Deists, and Infidels, — 
'Well, but we'll keep o' the safe side of the hedge, at 
any rate. May be we shall be damned if we don't 
go to the sacrament, but certainly we'll be damned if 
we do.' And so at last t' has come to't, in this 
Christian land, that while at the Lord Mayor's feast, 
Guildhall gates are not large enough to let through all 
the company — all the company at the Lord God's feast 
may go through the keyhole. The Lord Mayor had 
the king, and the queen, and the court, and the nobles, 
and the ambassadors, and the plenipotentiaries, and 
the plenty of all of 'em to breakfast with him ; but 
the Lord God may pick his teeth with the beggar 
Lazarus. 

The character of God, as exhibited in the fate of 
Ahab, is precisely that of the God and Father of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, as set forth in the gospel ; only 
with the difference in the gospel God, of an aggravat- 
ed majesty of horror, enhanced malignity, and coronary 
deceit. 



AHAB, OR THE LYING SPIRIT. 145 

Did God lead Ahab, under the influence of a 
strong delusion, of which himself was the cause, to 
battle and to death ? And sticks that gnat in the 
gullet, that mere trifle of injustice, that little bit of a 
lark, with the man whose blood can flow unfrozen in 
his veins, whose fell of hair can keep its smoothness, 
while he reads the eleventh verse of the second 
chapter of the second epistle of the apostolic chief of 
sinners to the church of the Thessalonians, which 
was in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ ? 
Where it is written, ' And for this cause God shall 
send them strong delusion, that they should believe a 
lie, that they all might be damned.' 

There's comfort for you, good Christians ; there's 
joy and peace in believing. Have I forged this ? 
Can I put a gloss on't that belongs not to't ? Can 
your lying prophets say it is not there, in characters 
which the wickedest man that ever breathed should 
shudder at the thought of? You are firmly persuaded 
that the gospel is from Heaven ! What of that ! the 
more likely 'tis to be from that lying spirit, which 
spake by the prophets. Your faith is strong. What of 
that I the stronger your delusion. It hath God for its 
author ? What of that ! Your faith itself may 
probably be the effect of God's curse upon ye. And 
what should God see in you, that he should be the 
author of a true revelation to you, who admits him- 
self to be the author of strong delusions to others. But 
those others, say ye, had pleasure in unrighteousness, 
and, therefore, were delivered over by the just judg- 
ment of God to believe in strong delusion. But what 
was it that the converted sinner had pleasure in, ere 
he was given over to believe the strong delusion which 
he calls gospel ? 

Now, Sirs, considering the danger of this strong 
delusion ! How much obliged ought we to be to 

T 



146 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

those good-natured holy men of God, the Methodists 
and Christian instruction, and religious tract societies, 
who, though we can never prevail on them to relieve 
our anxiety, by coming publicly to the scratch, and 
comparing notes in free and open discussion, to prove 
who are in strong delusion, will yet clap me their 
pretty bits of paper in our hand, and then skulk off 
like thieves into their gospel shops, for fear they 
should hear, what in the gospel shop they know they 
are safe from hearing, the language of reason, of truth, 
and honesty. 

Here have we their testimonies respecting the 
Bible ; to tell us what pretty things the clever 
fellows that lived a long while ago said of this 
Bible, in direct contradiction to what this Bible says 
of itself ; telling us that that is fair and right which 
we see with our own eyes to be most f^ul and 
wicked : that that is pure and holy, which modesty 
dare not glance at, that that is true, which bears 
the lie upon the face of it, in characters as big as 
London monument : that that is honorable to God, 
which would be disgraceful to the Devil himself. O, 
how much obliged are we to these good, clever men, 
for rectifying our poor fallible judgments, and setting 
our reason the other side upwards. 

We have the great names of Lord Bacon, Selden, 
Milton, Sir Matthew Hale, Boyle, Locke, and Sir 
William Jones, telling us what they thought of the 
Bible, at a time when, to have published a word 
against the Bible was death by law ; death at the 
gallows or at the stake, — perpetual imprisonment, 
the pillory, the rack, the wheel ; when they cut 
a man's ears off, split his nostrils, tore his eyes 
out, only for writing against the jure-divino-ship 
of the bishops; and with these intended favors in 
hand, these loving kindnesses and tender mercies to 



• AHAB, OR THE LYING SPIRIT. 147 

second their desires, our pretty lambkins of the gospel, 
our Jesus 's blood-hounds, have been collecting testi- 
monies in favor of the Bible. And d'ye think they 
haven't got testimonies enough ? The thief, the 
murderer, holds me his threatening dagger to my 
throat, and cries, 'Now, Sir, what do you think of 
me ?' I answer, f O God, Sir, I think what that 
pointed suggestion of yours makes me think. I think 
you a gentleman, every inch. I think that you have 
God for your inspirer, salvation for your intention, 
and truth without any mixture of error, for your 
argument.' Away goes cut-throat to the gospel shop, 
and publishes his religious tract, to tell the world 
what an honorable testimony was borne to his charac- 
ter. And such, and none other than such, is the 
predicament of all the testimonies which they can 
produce in favor of their Bible. A testimony to be 
honorable should be free ; it should be unbribed by 
prospects of reward, unawed by liabilities to punish- 
ment : above all, it should be borne where it may be 
examined, where it may be disputed, where it may be 
resisted, or the pretence to such a thing is a complete 
swindle. Can they, then, produce a single clever 
man in all the world, who would bear a favorable testi- 
mony to the Bible, of whom it could be said, that that 
man was perfectly free ? Or is the sun more glaring, 
at noon day, than the fact, that in proportion as 
men become free, intelligent, and virtuous : as the 
thrones of tyrants begin to discover symptoms of the 
dry-rot, the altar and the pulpit catch the disease, 
and the Bible, with the crown and sceptre upon it, 
becomes an idiot's bauble, more to be looked at than 
to be looked into : and its advocates are driven back 
into the dark, and the dark ages, and to drag forth 
the testimonies which have been borne to the Bible 
by men who wrote under terror of penal statutes ; or 



148 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

of such wiseacres as Sir Matthew Hale, who burnt 
the witches ; as Dictionary Johnson, who believed in 
the Cock-lane Ghost ; and those other ornaments of 
human nature, who were afraid of going to Hell for 
biting their nails off a Sunday. 

Where are the testimonies that should be borne to 
the Bible, by the great men of our own times? 
What say the Parisians and the Belgians ? what say 
Lafayette and De Potter of the Bible ? What keeps 
those in the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, 
as snug as rats in the granary, as silent as a jack-ass 
in a clover-field, but the Bible? Why is it that not 
a man of science, of superior learning, or of tran- 
scendent talent in the world, but who is anxious to be 
innocent of the Bible? Why is the universal cry, 
1 Send it to lazar-houses, gaols, hospitals, to parish 
apprentices, to beggars, slaves, and savage^,' while 
learning casts it from her, like something hateful, that 
her nature's chilled at ? 

Is it virtue, is it honor, is it honesty, that will 
struggle still to keep up, in sanctity and reverence, a 
system of iniquity, deceit and crime, which its own 
advocates dare not undertake to defend, where a man 
might have liberty to show them how iniquitous, how 
deceitful, and how wicked it is ? 

Was ever greater outrage offered to human under- 
standing ? Was ever every sentiment that is noble, 
honorable, ingenuous, and just among men, more 
cruelly oppressed, than that we should be forced to 
pay an exterior respect to a book, that, in its mis- 
translations, sets before us a God who is blasphem- 
ously made to appear the greatest monster of iniquity 
that iniquity itself could have imagined, when it 
strove to be transcendently iniquitous ? a lying God, 
who avails himself of his attribute of Infinite wisdom 
to overreach the credulity of his creatures, sends them 



AHAB, OR THE LYING SPIRIT, 149 

strong delusion that they should believe a lie, and then 
damns them for believing it? 

And we must be regarded as immoral men, and 
bound in penalties, and immured in prisons, for want 
of any better argument to answer OURS : that a book 
which represents God as a tyrant, is a book only fit 
for slaves : that a book which represents him as a 
liar, is a lying book :. and that a book which requires 
more explanation than it has ever yet had to explain 
away these representations, had better be done away 
with, and done with for ever. 

And it would be so, Sirs ! it would be — but for 
the secret of it, — that 'tis by this wicked craft, and by 
the very wickedness of it, that bishops, priests, and 
preaohers, have their wealth, and roll in saucy pomp, 
over the crushed necks of the mentally degraded, and 
therefore politically oppressed people. Never will tyrants 
and oppressors be got rid of, till Bibles be got rid of. 
Meya 6l6Xlov, veya ttanov, is the proverb, the great 
book is the great evil. Had the pretended revelation 
of God been worthy of a God, it would never have 
been done. Had its simple, but holy purport been, 
' All mankind are brethren, all are alike the children of 
one common nature : let them make themselves 
happy — that is wisdom : let them labor to promote 
the happiness of others — that, that alone, is virtue : — 
The tale would have been told too soon, — there would 
have been nothing in't by which one man could 
overreach the understanding of another. There would 
have been no lies to be made to look like truth, no 
injustice to be made to appear just, no impossi- 
bilities made to appear possible ; no Hell, no Devil, 
no raw head and bloody bones, that wouldn't stay 
dead when he was dead ; no damnation, and so no 
clergy. 



150 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOaiCAL LECTUEES. 

' No more should nation against nation rise, 
Nor ardent warriors meet with hateful eyes ; 
Nor fields with glittering steel be covered o'er, 
The brazen trumpets kindle war no more. 

All crimes should cease, and ancient fraud should fail. 
Returning Justice lift aloft her scale ; 
Peace o'er the world her olive wand extend, 
And man to man for ever be a friend." 

Delenda est Carthago* 



IX.-THE FALL OP MAN. 



1 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto 
the ground ; for out of it wast thou taken : for dust thou art, and 
unto dust slialt thou return.' — Genesis, iii. 19. 



Men and Brethren, — It has been shown, I hope, 
to the perfect satisfaction and conviction of all who 
have attended the analysis of sacred history in the 
lectures hitherto delivered by me, that whether the 
supposed Supernatural Being be good or evil, — 
whether he be called God or Devil, Christ or Belial, 
Holy Ghost, or Satan; 'be he a spirit of health, or 
goblin damned ; bring with him airs from heaven, or 
blasts from hell ; be his intents wicked or charitable,' — 
all, 'are but the Varied God,' — all are but different 
supposed manifestations of the attributes of one and 
the self-same physical agency. 

We pass now from this analysis of the higher 
order of abstractions — that is, from the Gods, Devils, 
Christs, Lords, Angels, and Holy and Unholy Ghosts ; 
all of which are only so many personifications of the 
Sun of our system, to the study of the no less entirely 
astronomical nature, and mythological history, of the 
demigods, and heroes, such as Adam and Eve, and 
Moses and Aaron, and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, 
which are the Stars of inferior magnitude ; the bsnayfiB 
Beny Yesraile, as they are called, — the children 



152 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

of Israel — that is, the sons of the planet Saturn ; 
Israel being the ancient Phoenician name of the planet 
Saturn, who, as being the most remote of all the 
planetary bodies then observed, was considered as the 
Father of Heaven, and acquired the name of p^p^ 
Av-ro-hom, or Abo-ram — that is, — Father of Elevation. 
That this secondary order of personages never had 
a real existence, any more than the primary ones, is 
not only expressly asserted, in the text itself, of those 
words of the apostolic chief of sinners, 'which things 
are an allegory :' but 'tis the very doctrine of the 
mystagogue, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who 
himself hath said, that 'they shall come from the east, 
and from the west, and from the north, and from the 
south, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and 
Jacob, in the kingdom of God.' And surely that 
kingdom is a kingdom not of this world : U is the 
kingdom of Heaven, even none other than that vaulty 
arch so high above our heads : as the apostle instructs 
us, 'if we wish to understand the mysteries of the 
kingdom of Heaven, we must set our affections on 
things above, not on things on earth.' 'For our 
conversation,' says he to his brother Timothy, 'is in 
Heaven ;' than which, we could not have been told 
in plainer language, that their conversation, all they 
were talking about, all they said, and all they meant, 
was the science of astronomy. 

To this secondary order of astronomical person- 
ages, we are introduced, in an entirely anonymous 
work, called the booh of Genesis ; but in the Hebrew 
text having no title at all, but an enlarged writing of 
the first word, WEfcCn, Beryshith, — in tlie beginning. 
In some of the early Greek versions it is called 
jj Teveocg Kocrf «, or cosmogony, or world-makingv or 
birth of the world, or begetting, or corning to be of 
the astronomical arrangement ; all which, or any other 



THE FALL OF MAN. 153 

rendering as a title, or character of the book, will be 
found to be as decidedly expressive of a fabulous 
character, as if it had been called a fable. 

The whole story of Genesis is so egregiously and 
manifestly a fable, that they have, in all ages, been 
considered as enemies both of the Christian and the 
Jewish faith, who have ever pretended to consider it 
as a fact. 

Origen, in his celebrated answer to Celsus, upbraids 
that sarcastic infidel with his total want of candor, 
in treating this story as if it had been delivered as 
instory ; and hiding what he ought to have known— 
t. e., that all this was to be understood in a figurative 
sense Celsus, not giving his readers the words which 
would have convinced them that they were spoken 
allegoncally (Contra. Cels. lib. 4); and 'It is not 
reasonable, he says, 'to deny to Moses the possession 
of truth under the veil of allegory, which was then 
tne practice of all eastern nations'. 

It is admitted then, that this is no true account 
of the origin of the human race. It is not true,— it 
is not pretended to be so. It is not the doctrine of 
bcnpture (an ascribe to Scripture whatever authority 
you please) that Adam and Eve were the first of the 
human species, or that the human species had any such 
origination as has been pretended. And Cain, there- 
fore their first-born son might have gone and married 
a wife in the land of Nod, without any inconsistency 
to the general scope of the allegory. 

But the inconsistency is that the doctrine repre- 
sented to be true, should be founded on a basis 
admitted to be false; and that the whole schem f 
salvation should be thought to be not an allegory ; W 
ye see for no other reason than because of ifs befi 
founded on the most egregious and manifest alWorf 
that ever was m the world. So that the Christian 

7* 



154 AsTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

system, Christians themselves defining it, is from first 
to last a jumble of contradictions ; a collection of 
quirks, catches, and double entendres ; a play at cross 
purposes ; an exercise to try the sharpness of our wit. 
Thus the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, is 
to be inferred from the most emphatic declaration that 
could be couched in words : that we have no souls, 
and that we are not immortal ; that being the Christian 
way of interpreting the word of God. 

And the whole theory of human redemption is 
gravely deduced as an inference from the very silliest 
riddle-me-riddle-me-ree that ever amused the tenant 
of a cradle. 

'And I will put enmity between thee and the 
woman, and between thy posterity and her posterity ; 
he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his 
heel.' 

Of which I shall give no further comment, than 
that of the most learned and truly pious Christian 
commentator and translator of this sacred book, 
Dr. Geddes : 'Whosoever thou beest who understand- 
est the first elements of the Hebrew dialect, and the 
first elements of logic, — say if thou findest in it any 
vestige of a seducing Devil, or a redeeming Saviour, 
thou mayest then turn to Calmet's commentary, or 
any other commentary of the same bran, and keep 
thyself from laughing if thou canst.' And at the 
conclusion of his commentary, on this chapter, the 
same most learned and Christian Hebraist concludes : 
'We have now got to the end of the Mythos (i. e., 
the fable) of Moses, or whoever else was the author 
of the wonderful production. I trust I have done 
something like justice to its beauties ; and that it 
will appear, on the whole, to be a well devised, well 
delineated, well executed piece — nay, that it has not 
its equal in all the mythology of antiquity : I mean, 



THE FALL OF MAN. 155 

if it be considered not as a real history, nor as a 
mere mystical allegory, — but as a most charming 
political fiction, dressed up for excellent purposes in 
the garb of history, and adapted to the grose concep- 
tions and limited capacity of a rude, sensual, unlearned, 
and credulous people.' 

Well then, Sirs, it is admitted by the most learned 
of the Christian world, that the story of the fall of 
man is altogether a mythos, a fable, a political fiction ; 
the most charming fiction in the world, if you please, — 
but yet no more than a fiction. No such persons as 
Adam and Eve ever existed, no such creation of the 
world in such a way, and no such fall of man, as has 
been pretended, ever took place. And there being no 
reality in the first Adam, there can be none in the 
second : no fall, no redemption ; no betrayer of our 
race into transgression, no Saviour ; and no need of 
one ; and the whole story, 

'Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit 
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste 
Brought death into the world, and all our woe, 
With loss of Eden, till one greater man, 
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat/ 

Is a poem, a fiction, a fable ; as far from the sober 
realities of history and truth as the tissue of a drunk- 
ard's dream. 

The adversaries of Christianity are justly charged 
by its advocates with want of .candor, in not giving 
the literal meaning of the words and names of sacred 
theology ; which, on being understood, would them- 
selves have shown, that nothing like historical truth 
was ever so much as pretended. 

These literal meanings, then, of the principle 
names and terms, I shall proceed to give. I shall 
show to you the Pagan and idolatrous origination of 
the story of salvation. Its existence in ages long 



156 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

anterior to any age that has ever been assigned as the 
age of Moses, even admitting that such a person as 
Moses ever existed ; and lastly, the real signihcancy 
and meaning of it. 

Now, observe ye, Sirs! all these scenes of the 
creation, temptation, and fall of man, whether under- 
stood literally or figuratively, whether as fable or fact, 
as false or true, are said to have occurred in Paradise. 

And is not that word Paradise, one of the words 
of which the infidel Celsus, uncandidly kept back the 
true meaning from the knowledge of his hearers, as 
well knowing that the meaning of that word, being 
once understood, none but a stark staring fool would 
ever have dreamed of the story being meant to pass 
for truth? 

It was in Paradise! Now, in the name of God, 
where is Paradise ? It is the place where so much of 
a man will go to, as remains of him after the worms 
have done dinner. It is the 'country from whose 
bourne no traveller returns,' and where no traveller 
goes that can stay on terra firma any longer. It is 
in terra del Fuego. It is in the country that lies on 
the other side of the grave when the gallows stands 
on this. You must cross the line to it. As our 
blessed Saviour said to the evangelical thief, when the 
thief was in no hurry, 'this day shalt thou be with 
me in paradise.' It was the third heaven, the place 
where St. Paul says 'he was caught up into, when he 
could hot tell whether he was in his body or out of 
his body ; and where he heard unspeakable words, 
which it is not lawful for a man to utter.' Corinth, 
ii. 12. 

" The word Paradise, adopted into the English, and 
other European languages, without being translated, 
from the Greek, napa deioog, which is the Septuagint 
rendering of iD^pa-nsa^, Gan-be-eden me kay-dem, 



THE FALL OF MAN. 157 

'a garden in Eden eastward,' divides itself into its 
compounds LTapa-dus, which is literally amongthe Stars. 
The very first noun, and first verb which follows it, 
of the very first sentence ascribed to divine revelation, 

arm rpfc&ma yn»n nan d^^n ri» d^nba 

has no such sense as that put on the words, 'in the be- 
ginning God created the heavens and the earth,' — the 
reference being, not to an original creation, but to a 
renewal and renovation of the face and appearance of 
the heavens and the earth: not to any thing imagined 
to have taken place then for the first time, and not 
of a nature to be repeated, by referring to the annual 
and diurnal phenomena of the visible heavens and 
earth, which take place every year, and every day of 
our lives. The heavens and the earth, according to 
the doctrine of the most ancient Jewish Rabbins,' 
following that of the Pythagorician, and elder Platonists, 
being co-eternal with God ; as the Sun's rays are co- 
eval with the Sun. And there, in the garden of God, 
looking eastward among those flowers of the sky, 
which adorn the beautiful bosom of the night, will 
be seen depicted in the groups of Stars, the whole 
drama of Paradise. 

The constellation, or group of Stars, represented 
as felling within the imaginary outline of a Serpent 
rising in the east, and followed by the woman, whom 
he may therefore, in the most literal sense, be said to 
seduce, sedncere, to lead on, as the woman with exten- 
ded hand, holding a branch of fruit in her hand, is 
said to seduce, or lead on her husband, the celestial 
herdsman, Bootes : till, at the moment when the 
Virgin and the Herdsman, having run after the Devil 
through the whole garden, are seen to set on the 
western horizon, which is literally the fall of man ; 

* Be-ry-sheeth Bo-ro-E-lo-him eith Hash-sho-ma-yim ve-€ith Ho- 
o-retz. 



158 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES 

and at the moment of their setting on the western 
side, the consellation Perseus, the cherubim with the 
flaming sword, will be seen to rise on the opposite 
side (the east of the garden of Eden), and so to drive 
them out, with his flaming sword, which turned every- 
way to keep the way of the tree of life. 

The representation of this astronomical phenomenon, 
as if it had been a real scene, and the Paradise as 
some place on earth, which might be ascertained by 
geographical description, by the courses of a river 
which watered the garden, and from thence was parted, 
and became into four heads, the Pison, which Jose- 
phus says is the Ganges : the Gihon, which is the 
Nile ; the Hiddekel, which is the Tigris ; and the 
Euphrates, which is as well known as the River 
Thames, is a grand specimen of the art which runs 
through both the Old and the New Testament — i. <?., 
the art of dressing up fiction into an appearance of 
history, which has served so effectually to employ the 
idleness of learning, and to deceive the simplicity of 
ignorance. 

Critics and philologists have fatigued the faculty 
of invention, in their game of scratch cradle, and the 
association of the most egregious fables, with so much 
chronology as once upon a time; or it came to pass in 
those days, and the mixing up of some names of 
places, and of persons known or spoken of in real 
history, has served to produce that glorious confusion, 
and that sublime bringing of heaven and earth together, 
which so well subserves the purpose of darkening 
counsel, by words without knowledge. Thus there 
certainly are such rivers as the Nile and the Ganges, 
the Tigris and the Euphrates, in the world : but if 
you were to travel by the course of either of those 
rivers, till you should arrive at the side of the Garden 



THE FALL OF MAN. 159 

of Eden, you should wish your friends good-bye, before 
you set out. 

So, were a man to write a romance, and intend to 
make it as romantic as possible, he would find he 
could not help associating his reveries with some 
circumstances of real life, and relieving the rack of 
his invention by borrowing from his memory. And 
not more than such evident borrowings of exhausted 
fiction from natural and probable fact, will be found 
in any part of sacred theology. 

The whole story of the creation of the world, and 
the allegorical life, character, death, and resurrection 
of Christ, was acted as a play, or holy pantomime, in 
the ancient mysteries of Mithra and of Bacchus, from 
which every doctrine which we now call Christian, 
is entirely derived : and in the study of which we 
discover, in a thousand instances, the meaning and 
reference of passages, which to the Christian ear have 
no sort of sense at all. 

Indeed, the gospels are the books, or compilations 
more or less spurious, of the Mythriacs of Persia, as 
the Christians were a sect, and Christianity nothing 
more than a sectarianism of that infinitely ancient 
idolatry. The books were called sacred, as signifying 
Secret, hidden, and set apart from the understanding 
of the uninitiated. And that appearance of natural 
dialogue, and real character of speeches and answers, 
which runs through the four gospels, results from the 
fact of their being the speeches set down to be spoken 
by the persons who enacted the characters. The 
persons being as real as the Keans, Kembles, Youngs, 
and Wards of the modern drama : but the characters 
being altogether as imaginary as the Yampires, Fiends, 
Gods, or Devils, which they represent so ingeniously. 
The character, when highly wrought, would often cause 
the fiction to be overlooked, and the player himself 



160 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

to be mistaken for the character he represented. As 
I witnessed myself, on Tuesday evening last, at 
Conventgarden theatre, in the case of a lady who sat 
in the same box with me. observing the well- exhibited 
follies of the Baron Pumpolino, in Cinderella, — till 
she was so entranced in the cunning of the scene, that, 
entirely forgetting that it was only a scene, she cried 
out, 'what a silly old man that is /' 

The historian, Gibbon, relates a story more honour- 
able to the feelings than to the understanding of a 
Gothic King, who, hearing a preacher of the gospel 
tell the frightful tale— how God had suffered his only 
Son, by wicked hands, to be crucified and slain, 
leaped from his seat, and grasped his spear with a 
noble oath to the effect : 'If I and my Franks had 
been there, it should not have happened.' 

Thus, in the fictitious caves of Mithra, which 
priests every where constructed, and from the ruins of 
one of which, at Naki Rustan, this hieroglyph of 'the 
Sun of Righteousness, with healing in his wings,' is 
derived, they celebrated mysteries which consisted 
in imitating the motion of the stars, the planets, and 
the heavens. The initiated took the names of the 
constellations, and assumed the figures of animals ; — 
one was a lion, another a raven, and a third a ram : 
and hence arose the use of masks in the first representa- 
tions of the drama. 

In the mysteries of Ceres, the chief in the proces- 
sion was called the Ceeatoe; the torchbearer was 
called the Sun ; the person nearest the altar, the Moon : 
the herald, or messenger, Mercury : and so on. 

The proper signification of the word Creator, 
translated from Tsour, is a name of the Egyptian 
God, Osiris ; signifying to give forms — that is, rather 
to join and put together than to create. In which, 



THE FALL OF MAN. 161 

the Creator, of the Old Testament, appears again, as 
the Joseph, the carpenter or joiner of the New. 

The name Joseph, formed from the Egyptian word 
Sar Osiph, signifying the Lord Joseph. 

But, as if no possibility should be left to hang a 
doubt on, that the personages or personifications of 
the gospel are the very same as those of the Pagan 
mythology, and that no such persons ever existed, 
but in imagination and scenic exhibition only, the gos- 
pel opens with a description of the costume itself, as 
supplied from the theatrical wardrobe. The order and 
furniture of the procession in the mystical sanctities 
of Bacchus and of Christ are precisely the same. 

Never was the tragedy of Macbeth, as acted at 
Convent-Garden, more like the same tragedy as acted 
at Drury-lane, than the mysteries of Bacchus and of 
Jesus ; the very name of mystery derived from the 
Egyptian word Misttor, a veil, proves the common 
Egyptian origin. 

In the ancient orgies of Bacchus, the doctrine of 
the purification of the souls was represented by a pro- 
cession of priests, habited in character, and carrying 
each the emblematical implement of the modes of puri- 
fication, by the several elements of water, air, earth, 
and fire. The first in the habit of penitence and ab- 
stinence, having his raimant of camel's hair, etc., car- 
ried a vase of water in his hand, and ' came baptising 
with water unto repentance,' announcing a second, 
who came with a fan in his hand, and a sieve, repre- 
senting the winnowing of corn, — he baptised with air, 
the use of the fan to create that rushing mighty wind 
which is the Holy Ghost, or more efficient purifier of 
souls, ' whose fan is in his hand, and he will thorough- 
ly purge his floor:' a third carried a lighted torch to 
burn up the chaff which the motion of the fan blew 
out of the sieve, with unquenchable fire ; a fourth car- 



162 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

ried the implements of purification by earth : a prun- 
ing hook, or adze, * to be laid at the root of the trees, 
that every useless branch might be cut off and cast 
into the fire.'' This officer was the husbandman, whose 
hieroglyphic baptism was by earth ; his mode of puri- 
fication being, ' that every branch that bore not fruit 
be cut off, and cast into the fire ; but every branch 
that beareth fruit he purgeth it, that it might bring 
forth more fruit.' John xv. 2. 

Eternal God ! With evidence in our hands of 
these ceremonies and processions, having constituted 
the orgies of Bacchus, and admitted to have done so, 
by the earliest Christian writers themselves, for count- 
less ages before the Christian era, is it possible to doubt 
that Christianity and Paganism are as essentially the 
same, as the natural fruits of the earth of any one year, 
or country, are of the same nature as those of another? 
As men and women now are of the same species as 
the men and women of ten thousand years ago ? 

1 All these religious tragedies, says Clemens 
Alexandrinus, 'had a common foundation, only differ- 
ently set off ; and that foundation was the fictitious 
death and resurrection of the Sun, the soul of the 
world, the principle of life and motion.' 

I have explained in previous lectures,* how every 
one of those signs of the Zodiac has, in turn, been 
the emblem of the Supreme God ; has been worship- 
ped as such, and has supplied from its physical anal- 
ogies, all the attributes, characters, and titles, which we 
find ascribed to God, both in the Old and New Testa- 
ment. The most orthodox Christians are not startled 
nor offended, when they are told that their Jesus 
Christ is the Lamb of God, that openeth the kingdom 
of heaven in March : nor have they any objection to 
recognize him as the Lion of the tribe of Judah in 
* Devil's Pulpit. 



THE FALL OF MAN. 163 

July. Nor do they blush to own, that when he took 
upon him to deliver man, he did not abhor the Virgin 
of August. Though they suspect the orthodoxy of 
St. Augustine, in addressing his prayers to Jesus 
Christ, as his good Scaraba3us, or Scorpion of Octo- 
ber. But though Jesus Christ be admitted to be the 
Creator, as well as the Saviour of the world, they will 
hardly forgive their Bible itself, for discovering to 
them, that the Creator of the world was a Goat, ITAN; 
even none other than the Capricornus of the Zodiac, 
which stands there immediately upon the point when 
the new year begins ; the Sun beginning to ascend, 
and the days to lengthen as the Goat skips up the 
mountains. 

In reference to which, by an ordinary metonymy 
of language, the Psalmist represents the mountains as 
skipping up the Goats. He only takes the stable for 
the horse, in exclaiming, — ' Why hop ye so, ye high 
hills ? for it was not the hills that hopt upon the goats, 
but the goats that hopt upon the hills, ' this is God's 
Goat, in which it has pleased him to dwell : yea, the 
Lord upholdeth the same forever.' 

And, as the Sun first begins to renew the world, 
in entering upon the sign of the Goat, which is the 
first of the ascending signs, the Goat was called the 
Creator of the World. 

And the original Samaritan Hebrew text of the 
Samaritan Pentateuch of the first verse of the first 
chapter of Genesis, was, ' In the beginning the Goat 
created the heavens and the earth.'* 

The Sun, taking his name from the Goat, as the 
first of the ascending constellations, had his whole an- 
nual history exhibited in theatrical pantomines, as the 
mystical life, death, and resurrection of the Goat. 
And our word tragedy, always signifying a perform- 
* Dupuis, Vol. HI., p. 54. 



164 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

ance, in which there must be a death, or something 
very sanguinary and cruel, is derived to us from the 
Greek word rpayodia, which is composed rpayoj o)6tj — 
i. e,, the ode or opera of the Goat ; and they were 
performed in honor of the God Bacchus — that is, the 
Sun, who commences his annual career in the sign of 
the Goat. 

The first tragedians upon earth were the priests of 
Bacchus ; the first tragedy was the gospel. And from 
the first verse of Genesis to the last of Revelations 
we have but varied and diversified scenes and acts of 
that deep tragedy, which, with reference to the Sun 
in the Vernal Equinox, is called the Song of the Lamb, 
or the New Song ; but which, with reference to the 
Sun in his first degree of ascension, was called the 
tragedy or Song of the Goat, which was the old Song. 

So the sacrifice of Abel, the very first to which 
God had respect, was a Goat. The 'Scape Goat, that 
ran away with the sins of the Jews between his 
horns, was the first type of salvation. 'And the 
Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the Gen- 
tiles,' was the second. And it was only to prevent 
the Rams and the Goats from butting at each other, 
that Jesus Christ set the Day of Judgment sheep on 
his right hand, and the goats on his left, as we read 
in the 34th of Ezekiel, « Thus saith the Lord God, I 
judge between the Bams and the He-goats.' 

It is admitted and well known by the learned in 
Biblical criticism, that it has been chiefly on the au- 
thority of the Jewish Rabbi, Moses Maimonides, who 
lived in the twelfth century, the middle of the dark 
ages, that the first chapter, or first verse of the first 
chapter of Genesis, came first to be taken to refer to 
a real creation of the world. 

But how deceitful this old Rabbi was, needs but a 
knowledge of what himself hath written, under the 



THE FALL OF MAN. 165 

veil of a language not understood by the people as a 
word to the wise, — his words, being translated, are : — 

'We are not to understand, nor take what is writ- 
ten in the book, about the creation, according to the 
letter, nor to have any such notions of it, as the com- 
mon people have, — for otherwise our ancient sages 
would not have recommended us, with so much anx- 
iety, to conceal the sense, and not to lift up the allego- 
rical veil, which hides the truth which it contains. 
This book of Genesis, taken according to the letter, 
gives the most absurd and extravagant notions of the 
Deity. Whosoever, then, shall perceive the true 
meaning, ought to take care not to divulge it.' It is 
a maxim which all our wise men repeat to us. ' It is 
difficult for any one, either from the text itself, or from 
lights elsewhere afforded, not to keep off from a good 
guess at what it means ; but then he ought to say 
nothing about it : or, if he speak on the subject, he 
ought to do so only by obscure hints and insinuations, 
and in an enigmatical way, as I do myself, leaving 
the rest to be found out, by those who can understand 
me.'* 

This is Jewish honesty ! And shall we wonder 
that the Jewish Rabbies should alter the text, from 
the original Samaritan reading, ' In the beginning the 
Goat created the heavens and the earth,' into, « In the 
beginning God created the heavens and the earth,' sub- 
stituting the word 3*nm, Elohim, for &iiwt, heezim; 
when we find our English translation changing the 
earlier rendering : — ' Abel brought the firstling of the 
Goats,' into 'Abel brought the firstling of his flock/ 
from the same apparent intention of concealing the 
part which the astronomical Goat sustains, not only 
as the first creator, but as the first sacrifice, and first 
type of the redeemer of the world ; and making over 

* I translate this from Dupuis, Yol. III., p. 9. 



166 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUKES. 

his honor to the sheep' who, in the 3d of Eevelation, 
calls himself Am on, the beginning of the creation of 
God ; and in the 13th is called 'the Lamb slain from 
the foundation of the world ; — when it is so evident 
that the first beast that was slain at the foundation of 
the world was a Goat; and that the Goat was the 
beginning of the creation of God — that is, as you 
see -by its place in the Zodiac, the beginning of the 
Sun's ascension in his annual progress through the 
signs which follow? 



X.-NOAH. 



" And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it 
grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man 
whom 1 have created, from the face of the earth, both man and 
beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air : for it re- 
penteth me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the 
eyes of the Lord." Genesis, vi. 6-8. 



Where is the wit of man, or where the piety and 
conscience, that could treat the subject, which now in 
consecutive series of the great science we are entered 
on, it becomes our duty to investigate, with solemnity, 
with seriousness, with sober criticism, with calm and 
manly reasoning, beyond the measure in which we 
purpose to do so ? 

Here is the great cataclysis, the flood, the univer- 
sal deluge, the whole world' drowned, except Noah and 
his family, and a menagerie ' of every living thing, of 
all flesh, of fowls after their kind, of cattle after their 
kind, and of every creeping thing of the earth after 
his kind — two of every sort, male and female ; but 
every clean beast, seven of a sort, the male and his 
female.' So that there must have been an odd one j 
an old bachelor beast, or an odd maid beast, of all the 
clean species. ' These all went in, two and two unto 
Noah into the ark, and the Lord shut them in. And 
the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth, and 
all the high hills that were under the whole heaven 
were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters 
prevail, and the mountains were covered. And all flesh 
died that moved upon the earth, both of lowland of cattle, 
and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, 
and every man. All in whose nostrils was the breath of 



168 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every living 
substance was destroyed. And Noah only remained 
alive, and they that were with him in the ark. And the 
waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty 
days.' 

Though, by an awkward oversight of the divine 
historian, it appears from the Septuagint that Methu- 
saleh, Noah's grand-father, who was not in the ark, 
contrived to swim ashore, and lived fourteen years 
after the flood. 

And all this, was because ' God saw that the wick- 
edness of man was great in the earth, and that every 
imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil 
continually. ' 

' And it repented the Lord that he had made man 
on earth, and it grieved him at his heart.' ia^ fco&t $*}) 
— Ye Yetobzebhel Lebo — ' And it grieved him at his 
heart.' The phrase is peculiarly pathetic. 

What blasphemy ! thus to represent the Creator of 
the world. Omnipotence repenting that he had made 
man, sitting upon a stone, and crying like a child ; 
wringing his hands, tearing his hair, calling himself 
all the fools and idiots he could think of ; stamping 
his foot, cursing, swearing, and vowing vengeance, 
that he would not leave a dog nor a rat alive. We 
should yet have but a faint idea of the exceeding sin- 
fulness of sin, and how poor and impotent language 
of any kind must be, to convey to us the emotions of 
that infinite wisdom and inconceivable benevolence 
which repented that he had made man, and grieved 
that man was no better than he had made him. 

There can be no doubt at all, that such language 
as this, when used in relation to the Supreme Being, 
is used only in gracious condescension to our ignorance, 
and in accommodation to the dullness and stupidity of 
our powers of conception, which require to be stimu- 



NOAH. 1G9 

lated and excited by strong and impassioned figures of 
speech, ere they can be led to form any idea at all, on 
sacred subjects. 

In the Church of England Collect for fair weather, 
the General Deluge is alluded to with equal sublimity 
and simplicity in these words : ' O Almighty Lord 
God, who, for the sins of man didst once drown all 
the world, except eight persons, and afterward of thy 
great mercy, didst promise never to do so again. 1 Ano- 
ther dish of Christian blasphemy ! He promised not 
to do so any more ! But even that promise is evasive, 
— for though he is made to say he won't drown the 
world any more, St. Peter tells us that he means to 
bum it one of these days. 

The most magnificent poems have been written, 
the noblest paintings ever produced by the hand of 
man, have been dedicated to the labor of realizing to 
the imagination the scene of the universal deluge. 
The Tower of Babel, the Pyramids of Egypt, have 
been raised in commemoration of this physically im- 
possible event. Not a nation upon earth has existed, 
whose records have not supplied some attestation to 
the general belief of the world having been once de- 
stroyed by waters. The very form and arrangement 
of our hills and valleys over the whole earth's sur- 
face, is adduced as demonstration to the eye of skep- 
ticism itself, that such an event must have taken place. 
The libraries of the world groan under the weight of mil- 
lions of folios, written in corroboration of this physically, 
morally, and absolutely impossible event ; which not 
only never did, but never could have been brought to 
pass : no, not by the Almighty power of God him- 
self ; nor be conceived to have been brought to pass, 
unless we are to take leave of our rational faculties, 
and believe that God could commit suicide upon 



170 ASTEONOMICC-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

himself, or make a tiling to be, and not to be, at 
the same time. 

The passage, as it stands in the Hebrew text of 
Genesis, may be justly called the opprobrium docto- 
rum. For the better skilled in the Hebrew tongue, the 
more learned, the more shrewdly acute, the deeply critical 
our commentators are, the further they are from any 
sort of agreement among themselves, as to the mean- 
ing of any one verb or noun of that very sacred text. 

What are we to do, gentlemen, when the doctors 
and rabbis differ so widely in their different transla- 
tions, as upon a comparison of them, to leave it infin- 
itely problematical, whether we are in possession of 
any translation at all, or whether the scope and intent 
of the original text be not a hundred thousand miles 
off the meaning of any meaning that they have put 
upon it ? 

Never forgetting this grand truth, that the oldest 
Hebrew texts which the doctors and rabbis can pre- 
tend to, are themselves not originals, but translations 
from a language, in all probability as much older than 
the Hebrew, as the Hebrew is than the modern 
Italian. Our pretended original is itself a translation. 
There was never an author or divine yet, who at- 
tempted to explain the doctrine of the universal deluge, 
but an observer of his explanation might discover that 
the winter had set his head a swimming. 

I shall adduce only a few of the translations that 
have been given by equally learned and profound He- 
brew scholars, of what might pass for as easy and 
simple a text as could occur in the whole narrative. 
Our English Bibles have it, ' And God said unto 
Noah, Make thee an ark of gopher wood : rooms shalt 
thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and 
without with pitch.' 

The learned and evangelical Hebraist, Bellamy, 



NOAH. 171 

who smells out evangelical meanings, where no man 
on earth but himself had ever dreamed of them, as- 
sures us, that this verse ought to have been rendered, 
* Make for thee an ark of the wood of gopher : for 
thou shalt expiate in it, even a house also, with an 
outer room for atonement.' 

Eternal God ! let us throw words together with a 
shovel ; we should have as good a chance for finding 
meanings in them. ' Light and darkness,' says this 
great Hebraist, ' cannot differ more than the Hebrew 
differs from the English.' And we shall find, that in- 
stead of Noah being informed that he was to pitch 
the ark within and without with pitch, God commands 
him to build apartments in the ark for sacrifice and 
atonement. So that, notwithstanding the space that 
would be occupied in the ark, by two of every species of 
unclean, and seven of every species of clean animals, and 
provender for them for two years : there was room enough 
to spare for a church and church-yard aboard the ship. 

The transition of idea from pitch to cobler's wax 
(which is made of pitch), is not more apparent in the 
judgment of this learned Hebraist, than is his infer- 
ence, that God could not have given any orders about 
pitching the ark with pitch, without intending some 
provision to be made for the sole. He is sure that the 
word which our English Bibles have rendered pitch, 
ought to have been rendered atonement : as I might 
be sure that the word cobler's wax is synonymous with 
the word salvation, because when a man comes to the last, 
he will find salvation as precious to the sole as atone- 
ment is to the upper leather. 

Oh ! how comfortably sure we may make on't, that 
our English Bibles are faithfully translated, when the 
most learned of the learned world assure us, that the 
difference between our translations, and the original 
Hebrew, is only as different as light and darkness. 



172 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

The real waggery is, in the contradiction of the 
ideas themselves, that God should employ almighty 
power and infinite wisdom to save a ship from foun- 
dering, and yet hit on no better way than having it 
well caulked. It would have sunk if it hadn't been 
made of gopher wood, it would have sprung a leak, if 
it hadn't been pitched with atonement wax. 

And what was gopher wood ? Hear the wise rab- 
bis and most learned commentators : ' It was cedar J 
says the Targum of Onkilos : ' It was Juni- 
per," 1 says Castellus : s It was box-wood J says the 
Arabic commentators : ' It was pine-tree wood,' says 
the Perisc l It was ebony wood,' says Bochart : 'It 
was no sort of wood at all,' says the no less learned 
Dawson and Geddes : 'It was made of wicker-work,' 
says Geddes : ' It was made of bulrushes daubed over 
with lime,' says Dawson : Go it, my boys ! Go it ! 
I warrant ye it was made of some wood : Was it not 
made of false-wood '? 

But the most plausible interpretation of all, and 
infinitely nearer the sense of the original, is, that it 
was made of barley-sugar for the children of Israel to 
suck : of which the great Hebraist gives us a hint in 
a very shrewd note at the bottom of his page, where, 
in an explanation of the text, ' Fifteen cubits upward 
did the waters prevail, and the mountains were cover- 
ed :' he admonishes us that, ' It is not at all necessary to 
suppose that the Antediluvian mountains were as high 
as those of the present earth ; they may have been of 
a very different form and size, and composed of other 
materials.' 

Indeed, it is almost impossible to tell when the 
learned, and most learned and grave authors, are serious 
with us on this subject. For notwithstanding an infin- 
ity of research, and immense literature expended, it 
is impossible for anybody but a fool not to suspect 



NOAH. 173 

them, ever and anon, of that mode of sarcasm, called 
the Diasurmus ; or what, in the vulgar phrase, is 
called ' Coming if upon us — that is, trying how far 
we may be led by the nose, and how much we will 
swallow. 

But can we blame them for deceiving us ? Or have 
we any right to expect that they should tell us the 
truth, or to imagine that it is the truth which they are 
telling us, when, if they discover to us that they are 
wiser than we are, we kill them, or cut them off from 
social existence : and the man of learning who had 
only ventured to speak the convictions of his heart, is 
dealt on worse than the house-breaker or common 
theif ; and honest learning bears the lash of vice. 

There are two authors in the world who have at- 
tempted to treat the story of the deluge as an historical 
fact : and Noah as a person who had a real existence, 
who have not differed from each other, in their inter- 
pretations, as widely as it was possible to differ. Each 
successive interpreter emerging only to oppose and 
overthrow the interpretation which his predecessors 
had given. 

Thus the learned Faber cites proof from the Ety- 
mologicon Magnum, that the word ran, Thebah ! 
which we render ark, signifies, in Syriac, a cow. So 
that the command of God to Noah, to make an ark of 
gopher wood, should mean only that he was to make 
a wooden cow, as we have a curiously coincident pas- 
sage in Diodorus. 

1 Some say that when Osiris was killed by Typhon, 
Isis having collected his scattered limbs, put them in- 
to a wooden cow, covered over with cambric or lawn ; 
and hence the town was called Busiris ; and hence, 
too, our bishops, to this day, continue to wear lawn 
sleeves. 

As the word which we translate an ark, so cer- 



174 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

tainly signifies a cow, we shall not wonder that No AH 
might be saved from drowning in a wooden cow, when 
we have such good reason to suspect that the whale 
which swallowed Jonah might have been a wooden whale. 

And as salvation was always a wooden affair, we 
have a clear analogy, for the office and character 
which the carpenter bears in it. The ark could not 
have been built, unless Noah had been a carpenter ; 
nor could God have instructed him how to put it 
together, unless God had possessed considerable 
skill in carpentry. The cross could not have been 
constructed without a carpenter. So that the very 
scribes and pharisees could not make the matter 
plainer, that Jesus was come to be the Savior of the 
world, than by their unanswerable question, ' Is not 
this the carpenter's son ?' 

The natural and almost inevitable transition of 
human ideas from the supposed cause of salvation, to 
the means and instrument of it, and the transfer of 
feelings of gratitude, for being saved into a peculiar 
respect for the particular matter instrumentally em- 
ployed in their salvation, accounts for the wooden ark, 
and the wooden cross, leading men on to the worship 
of wooden gods. 

The natural succession of human ideas, their ori- 
gin in the impressions of matter upon the five senses, 
and their combinations in the sensorium of a similarly 
constructed brain, accounts at once for the uniformity 
and similarity of all the great archetypes of religious 
terror in all parts of the world, and amongst all gen- 
erations of the human species. It could not possibly 
have been that creatures, often destroyed by floods, 
and always liable to drowning, should be without 
that natural exaggeration which ignorance and terror 
must suggest, of the drowning of the whole world. 

And hence no nation, or race of men has existed, 



NOAH. 175 

or ever could exist, without its imaginations and 
fables of miraculous deluges, and miraculous escapes 
from drowning ; and the story of Noah and his ark is 
found with only immaterial variations in the le- 
gends of Prometheus, Deucalion, Atlas, Theuth, 
Zeuth, Zevg; Xisuthros, Inachus, Osiris, Helius, which 
is the Sun, Meen or Man, which is the Moon ; from 
which Egyptian word, our Teutonic name of our own 
species, Man and Men, is derived, as Noah was be- 
lieved to be the first of the present race of men. 

The crescent and gibbous forms of the moon, pre- 
senting the shape of a boat, seeming to sail without 
oars or masts in the waters which are above the fir- 
mament, over the tops of the highest mountains ; the 
physically apparent influence of the moon upon 
the tides of the sea, and the inundations of rivers ; 
and the irresistible association of ideas which could 
not by any possibility shut out the conceit of there 
being a man in the moon, a directing man, a good 
and just man be sure on't, guiding its navigation 
through the trackless ocean, and preserved in its con- 
cave from the desolation of all sublunary things, pre- 
sents a demonstration, not indeed that the Avorld ever 
could have been drowned, but that there never could 
have been a nation or people in the world, who must 
not by the necessary actings of the human mind, and 
the immutable laws of nature, have stumbled on some 
such a conceit. 

The man in the moon, then, is Noah in the ark ; 
and this so literally, that the very names, Egyptian, 
Chaldean, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, German, Saxon, 
French, English, betray the .identity Mrjv, Mav f M ov 
Moov, Men, Mens, the mind, all of the same family, 
all bearing the same likeness. 

In the Hebrew word na , Noach, which we trans- 
late Noah, consisting only of the two consonants N 



176 ASTRONOmCO-THEOLOaiCAL LECTUEES. 

and Ch, or X, to be supplied by vowels ad-libitum, 
we have la Nach, the root of the name Inachus, Noux, 
and Nox, the night, Noos, or Nw^, the mind, and 
Navg or Nave, a ship, Hebrew, Aneeyah ; all referable 
to the boat-like form of the moon, sailing without 
chart or map upon the ocean of the night, and bearing 
and guided by the divine mind for the preservation of 
animal existence. 

We are constantly reading in the ancient mythol- 
ogy of the ©£oz vav-tXXovreg, or sailing gods. Por- 
phyry assures us that the ancients described the Sun 
himself in the character of a man sailing on a float, — 
and Plutarch observes that they did not represent 
the Sun and Moon in chariots, but as wafted about 
in floating machines, a sort of motion more homogen 
to that which we see the motion of the heavenly bodies 
to be. 

And, notwithstanding the intolerant insolence with 
which heaven and earth have been brought together ; 
the bowels of the earth been ransacked, and all art and 
nature, science and learning, laid under levy to make 
the story of the deluge, in the grossest sense of it, 
appear a real fact; on the supposition that the credit 
of what is called divine revelation, could only be 
maintained as that fact should be shown to be incon- 
trovertible ; it happens that the divine revelation ex- 
pressly instructs us, that the story of the deluge is 
not a literal fact, nor so to be understood, but a figure 
only. As in 1 Peter, iii. 19-21 are spoken of, • the 
spirits in prison, which sometimes were disobedient, 
when once the long suffering of God waited in the 
days of Noah, while the ark was preparing, wherein 
few, — that is, eight souls were saved by water, the 
like figure whereunto even baptism doth now save us.' 
A sufficient intimation, one would think, for stupidity 
itself to have noticed, that the whole affair of Noah, 



NOAH. 177 

and his watery salvation, was a figure of speech, as 
our salvation, by the water of baptism is but a like 
figure. 

But it happens that the whole history of Noah is 
entirely a Chaldean fable ; and the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 
10th and 11th chapters of Genesis are a mere episode 
and interpolation, plagiarized out of the sacred legends of 
the Chaldean priests, and inserted into the book of 
Genesis. As an attentive reader of the Bible will 
observe, throughout the whole Bible history (if it were 
a history), that the supposed descendants of Abraham, 
Isaac, and Jacob, had never heard of their descent 
from the old drunkard Noah. Nor is his name men- 
tioned, nor his history glanced at, till after the period 
of their supposed Babylonish captivity in Chaldea, 
from whence the silly legend was derived. 

The books of Psalms, Proverbs, Chronicles, 
Judges, Kings, amidst innumerable references to the 
Patriarchs, to Moses and Aaron, and the manifestations 
of God's power and goodness, in the most contempti- 
ble and ridiculous miracles, the covenant which he 
made with Abraham, and the oath which he sware 
unto Jacob, and his drowning Pharoah and his host in 
the Bed Sea, never once allude to the prettiest miracle 
of 'em all, his drowning the whole world at once. 

What other supposable cause of the omission can 
be assigned, than the evident one, that it had not at 
that time been introduced into their book. 

Their historian, Josephus, however, found it in 
the text of Genesis, in his time, and in his defence of 
the Jewish people against the attacks of Apion, justi- 
fies the account of the deluge, given in the Book of 
Genesis, on the sole ground of its perfect agreement 
with the account to be found of it in the ancient Chal- 
dean legends. After having collated the testimonies 
scattered in the writings of various nations, 'Now,' 



178 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

says he, ' I shall interrogate the monuments of the 
Chaldeans ; and my witness shall be Berosus, bom 
himself a Chaldean, a man known to all the Greeks 
who cultivate letters, on account of the works he pub- 
lished in Greek, concerning the astronomy and philos- 
ophy of the Chaldeans. 

' Berosus, then, after having compiled and copied 
the most ancient histories, gives the same accounts as 
Moses of the deluge, of the destruction of men by the 
waters, and of the ark in which Noux was saved, and 
which stopped on the mountains of Armenia.' 

Josephus continues, ' Hierome, the Egyptian, who 
wrote upon Phoenician antiquities, also speaks of it, as 
does Mnaseas, and several others.' 

Thus we see that Josephus is so far from looking 
upon Berosus, and the other historians, as having de- 
rived their stories of the deluge from the Book of 
Genesis, that his whole argument is in challenge of 
respect for the Book of Genesis, solely on account of 
its having been derived from them ; and he invokes 
the Chaldean, Armenian, and Phoenician monuments, 
as the first and original witnesses, of which the Book 
of Genesis is only an emanation. A proof external, 
which I undertake to support by innumerable internal 
proofs that our Genesis and other sacred books in the 
Hebrew and Greek tongues, were not originals, but 
translations from some infinitely remote original, of 
which no vestige remains. 

But the most particular history of the deluge, and 
the nearest of any to the account given in the Book 
of Genesis, is to be found in Lucian's Treatise of the 
Syrian Goddess,* who describes Noah under the name 
of Deucalion, as does the poet Ovid ; and his account 
is so entirely coincident with that of Genesis, as to 

* Bryant's Analysis, Yol. III., p. 28. 



NOAH. 179 

leave no possibilty of doubt, that they were both de- 
rived from the same original. 

A similar story is found in the Bhagavat Pourana, 
the sacred Bible of the Hindoos, which contains also 
the substantive story of Jesus Christ ; thus proving 
the derivation of both the Old and New Testaments 
from the same sources : the words of that divine poem 
are thus given by Sir William Jones : — 

1 The demon Hayagriva having purloined the Vedas 
from the custody of Brahma, while he was reposing 
at the close of the 6th Manwantara, the whole race 
of men became corrupt, except the seven Rishis, and 
Satyavrata. This prince was performing his ablutions 
in the river Critamala, when Vishnu appeared to him 
in the shape of a small fish ; and after several aug- 
mentations of bulk in different waters, was placed by 
Satyavatra in the ocean ; when he thus addressed his 
amazed votary : ' In seven days all creatures who have 
offended me shall be destroyed by a deluge ; but thou 
shalt be secured in a capacious vessel, miraculously 
formed. Take, therefore, all kinds of medicinal herbs 
and grain for food, and together with the seven holy 
men, your respective wives, and pairs of all animals, 
enter the ark without fear ; then shalt thou know God 
face to face, and all thy questions shall be answered.' 
Saying this, he disappeared ; and after seven days, the 
ocean- began to flow, the coast and the earth to 
be flooded by constant showers. When Satyavatra, 
meditating on the Deity, saw a large vessel moving on 
the waters, he entered it, having in all respects conform- 
ed to the instructions of Vishnu who, in the form of 
a vast fish, suffered the vessel to be tied with a great 
sea serpent as with a cable to his measureless horn. 
When the deluge had ceased, Vishnu slew the demon, 
and recovered the Vedas ; instructed Satyavatra in 



180 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

divine knowledge, and appointed him the 7th Menu, 
by the name of Yaivaswata.' 

The expression Elohim, the Gods, so often and 
almost exclusively found in the Book of Genesis, from 
which our Hutchinsonian divines so ingeniously argue 
the existence of a trinity of divine persons in the God- 
head — because God said, 'Let us make man in our 
image after our likeness,' is but another demonstration 
of the Chaldean origin of the whole system : because 
in the Chaldean, and in almost all the i^siatic theo- 
logies, it is not a single God who created ; but they 
were the Gods, his ministers, his angels, and especial- 
ly the deacons and genii of the twelve months, who 
created each his part of the world — that is, the circle 
of the year. 

And thus have we a reasonable and philosophical 
explanation, of that apparently most monstrous absur- 
dity, which I explained in a discourse, on the first verse 
of the first chapter of Genesis; that that verse in the Sam- 
aritan Pentateuch, originally was :3H&n H&l £P£"lE3n 
H& "12H fcOH tl^fcOn ' I* 1 the beginning the Goat cre- 
ated the heavens and the earth.' The words **p JBoro, 
conveying no such idea as that of a creation out of noth- 
ing but a renewal only. And in the annual renewal of 
the circle of the heavens and the earth, which com- 
mences from the winter solstice, immediately after the 
shortest day, 21st of December, or when first the Sun 
appears to have gained the first degree of ascension, 
which is on the 25th of December, our Christmas-day, 
you see the Sun is in Capricornus, the Goat, who is, 
therefore, the Creator — that is, the r en ewer or first 
opener of the annually repeated Genesis, or creation 
of the heavens and the earth.* As in the sign which 

* About the ' Goat creating the heavens and the earth,' my 
authority for this curious criticism is the great Dupuis, Yol. III., p. 
34. ' C'estdonc par elle que Ton pourra expliquer l'expression singu- 



NOAH. 181 

immediately follows, you see the Genius of the waters, 
Aquarius, January, Noah, the Nile, Reuben, Inachus, St. 
Peter, St. Mark, St. Januarius, Bishop of Benevento, 
pouring out his urn of water upon the world. He is the 
just man, in whom the system, after the deluge, is 
again renewed. And though, in the beginning, it was 
the Goat, the emblem of wickedness and of wicked 
people, who created the heavens and the earth, the 
year has since been reckoned to begin in January ; 
that just and righteous man, who, you see, has turn- 
ed his back upon the wicked generation of the Goat, 
and succeeded to all the titles, names, and attributes 
of Supreme Deity, which we find in turn given to 
every one of these signs of the Zodiac, as the Sun in 
succession seems to pass through them, and was wor- 
shipped as being in them. 

Thus, all the deluges mentioned by the Jews, 
Chaldeans, Indians, Greeks, or Romans, as having 
destroyed the world, under Ogyges, Noah, Inachus, 
Xisuthrus, Satavrata, or Deucalion, — are one and the 
same physico-astronomical event, all the marvellous- 
ness of which has arisen from the metaphorical lan- 
guage employed to express it, and that foolish love of 
wonderment and absurdity, which makes men who 
have once taken up a conceit, how gross or irrational 
soever it may be, impatient of that further instruction 
and better information which would rectify their mis- 
takes, and rob them of their faith in the gods and 
godlings of the babyhouse. 

If we dissipate their delusion, and spoil the amuse- 
ment which the children of Israel find in so pretty a 
toy as Noah's ark, with all the pretty little lions and 
tigers, and elephants, and cats and dogs, and rats, and 

liere, dont se servait La G-enese des Samaritains, pour designer le 
Dieu Jreateur. On y lisait ces mots: Au commencement, le Bouc 
crea le ciel et la terre.' 



182 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURSES. 

birds, and snakes, marching into it, two and two, like 
a regiment of soldiers ; not only shall we lose all 
favor with the six foot high babies themselves, who 
will be sure to cry out, ' If you rob us of Noah's ark, 
what other ark will you give us in its stead?' but 
their papas and mammas will swell the hubbub against 
us, and become our enemies, on the score, as they 
will say, that, ' the children must have their JYbah's 
ark. It's perfectly innocent, ifs politically useful. 
It serves to keep 'em out of mischief ; and suppose it 
is a delusion, what harm is there in it f What 
would they gain by discovering that it was a 
delusion P 

But enough of this. Its answer is at once : Is it 
better to be a dunce and an idiot than to be rational? 
Is folly better than wisdom ? Is God's best gift of 
reason so vile in our esteem, that we should think 
man the better for being without it ? If not so, then 
the irrational only will be unwilling to correct those 
errors of language, and vagaries of conceit, which have 
held the human mind so long in the swathing bands 
of a perpetuated infancy. 

From the primordial imperfection of language, no 
other word was found to express the great circle of 
the heavens, than such as the Greek Kodrjog, which 
signifies the arrangement ; the Latin Mundus, of pre- 
cisely the same signification, the Hebrew Snw, Tyvel, 
of the same signification, and our English world, de- 
rived by the same analogy from the whirl, or circular 
ring of the revolving Zodiac. The revolution of this 
circle by the Sun, composing the year of twelve 
months, was called Orbis, the world, the celestial cir- 
cle ; consequently, every twelve months the world 
ended, and the world began again ; the world was 
destroyed or expired, and the world was renewed. 
And at whatever point of this circle, or in which ever 



NOAH. 183 

of these signs, the whirVd, or the go-round was 
reckoned to begin, that sign was deemed the beginner 
or creator of the world. 

Now, of course, the epoch or point of beginning in 
the reckoning in this annual whirl varied considerably 
according as different people or countries reckoned 
their year to begin, as they might reckon it to begin 
on any day, or in any month they pleased. There 
being, however, but four distinctly marked points in 
the circle, which would be convenient for accurate 
reckoning. These are the two points in the year when, 
once in Spring, as the days lengthen, about the 25th 
of March; and once again in Autumn, as the days 
shorten, about the 21st of September, the days and 
nights are exactly of the same length ; and these are 
called the Vernal and Autumnal Equinoxes — that is, 
equal nights. And when the Sun is at his highest 
point of ascension, and the days are consequently the 
longest, which is about the 21st of June, and when 
again the Sun is at his lowest point of declension, and 
the days are the shortest, which is about the 21st of 
December, — where you see the Goat, in which the 
Sun begins immediately to reascend : thus supplying 
us with a clear and philosophical sense for the most 
literal rendering of the 1st of Genesis, 'In the beginning 
the Goat created the heavens and the earth;' and 
enabling us to trace that very curious association of 
idea, which led the wisest and most philosophical 
nations of the earth to worship the Supreme Being, 
the Great First Cause of the universe, under the name 
of Pan, and under the imagined form of half a man 
and half a Goat. The Creator, our annual beginner 
of the whirl, having his lower or Decembral part in 
Capricornus, and his upper part in the good and just 
man of Aquarius. 



184 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUKES. 

But among those nations which reckoned the 
annual whirl, or circuit of the Sun through the 
heavens, to begin from the Vernal Equinox — that is, 
when the Sun was in the Lamb of the Zodiac, the 
Lamb was considered as the Creator of the whirl. 
And as you see that the Lamb or Ram of God has 
his position in the Zodiac, precisely at the point where 
the Ecliptic crosses the Equator ; the Lamb and the 
cross become essentially and inseparately associated 
ideas ; the Lamb was said to be crucified ; and you 
arrive at the meaning of that passage of St. John, in 
which Jesus Christ — that is the Sun, is spoken of as 
crucified from the beginning of the world — that is, he is 
crucified or crosses the Equator every Spring, imme- 
diately at the beginning of the annual circle. 

But this is but half the coincidence of the language 
of science and theology. For look to your New 
Testament, and you will find that your Jesus Christ 
is positively declared to have been crucified twice. 
Because the Sun, having crossed the Equatorial line, 
at the Equinoctial point in Spring, when he ascended 
into Heaven, must cross it again, at the Equinoctial 
point in Autumn, when he descended into Hell. As 
in Revelations, xi. 8, the same St. John, who had 
taught that Jesus Christ was crucified on Mount Cal- 
vary, in Judea, as positively asserts, that he was also 
crucified in Egypt, in those words, ' and Egypt, where 
also our Lord was crucified.' 

And so St Paul, preaching Jesus Christ, and him 
crucified, when he tells us that he humbled himself, 
and became obedient unto death, explains himself by 
adding to those words, ' obedient unto death,' even 
the death of the cross ; that is, you see, no death at 
all ; only such a mystical and metaphysical sort of 
death as the San dies, when he crosses the Equator. 
For had it been in right earnest, — had there been any 



NOAH. 185 

real, downright dying and going dead in the matter, 
there would have been a dead end both of our blessed 
Savior and our blessed Salvation too ; and we should 
never have seen the Sun again. 

But in Egypt, they reckon their year from the 
summer solstice, when the Sun has reached his high- 
est point of elevation, which is the 21st of June. 
The Hebrew or Egyptian name of which month is 
Thammuz ; which is absolutely none other than 
Thomas, the disciple of Christ, who, in the moral 
representation, had half a mind to go back again ; as in 
the physical one, his sign in the Zodiac is Cancer, the 
Crab. And the allegorists have given him a crabbed 
moral character in the gospel. And just at this 
season of the year it is that the river Nile begins to 
show the first indications of the approaching inunda- 
tion, according to which physical phenomenon, you 
will find in your Prayer Books, and Almanacs, that the 
24th of June is assigned as the day of nativity of John the 
Baptist ; and in forty days from that time the annual 
deluge is found to cover all the land of Egypt, to an 
average depth of fifteen cubits ; while a hundred and 
fifty days (the term during which the flood is said to 
be upon the earth,) added to the 24th of June, the 
beginning of the inundation, brings us to the exact place 
of Noah, the Aquarius of the celestial whirl, who is 
again John the Baptist, come in the wilderness, bap- 
tizing with water to repentance. 

And it is this double way of reckoning, — the one 
considering the time of the increase, which was forty 
days, and the other the whole term of the inundation, 
and the mixing up of the times of the inundations of 
the Tigris, the Euphrates, and the Ganges (which 
exhibit the same annual phenomena), which has 
occasioned the egregious apparent contradiction in the 
story of Genesis, which twice asserts that the waters 



186 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

were on the earth forty days, and yet so emphatically 
concludes that the waters prevailed 150 days. And 
thus, has an entirely natural and annually recurring 
event, by the common metaphor and exaggeration of 
language, been conjured into the most monstrous and 
idiotish conceit that ever frenzy dreamed or folly cre- 
dited. And we have only to learn the humiliating 
lessons, how dreadful an insanity religion is ; what 
desperate havoc it makes in the brains, even of the 
wisest and cleverest men in all other respects ; and, 
how entirely and forever we must say good-night to 
reason, to sobriety, to truth, and honesty, or to any 
expectation of them, from any man when once that 
cruel disease has seized on him. 

For look ye, Sirs, we have the long succession of 
Christian fathers, even into the fourth and fifth 
centuries, solemnly appealing to the farce cf the 
existence of the remains of Noah's ark, upon the 
mountains of Armenia, in their own times. And the 
learned Bryant, than whom a more learned man has 
not existed within fifty years of our own time, 
exhausting his vast stores of learning, to vindicate 
the authenticity of his Apamean Medal, struck, you 
may suppose, on board the ark itself, exhibiting the 
head of Philip of Macedon on the one side, and Noah, 
Shem, Ham, and Japheth on the other. And you 
have all the religion in the world, and all the 
religious men in the world, engaged in maintaining 
and giving an air of respectability and seriousness 
to a conceit so monstrous, that the story of the cow 
that jumpt over the moon is sobriety itself compared 
to it. 

Extensive and desolating inundations, irruptions 
of the sea upon the land, and tremendous bursts of 
cataracts, and water spouts, have undoubtedly taken 
place, in all parts of the globe, and in all ages of the 



NOAH. 187 

world. Nor is there, perhaps, a spot on the whole 
earth's surface, that has not been, and may not be again 
a part of the bed of the ocean. But that the water 
should have ever covered the whole globe at once, is 
an absurd chimera in physics, — impossible in nature, 
and inconceivable in reason. 

No such person, then, as Noah, or any of the per- 
sons who are said to have been with him in the ark 
ever existed : no such an event as the deluge ever did 
or ever could have happened. And we can only take 
this story as an admonition to us, through our future 
investigations, of what we are to think, and how we 
are to understand, all the other sacred personages, 
and sacred histories of sacred scripture. 



XL-ABRAHAM. 



' After these things the word of the Lord came unto Abram, in a 
vision, saying, Fear not, Abram : I am thy shield and thy 
exceeding great reward. And Abram said, Lord God, what 
wilt thou give me ?" — Genesis, xv. 1. 



There is a very curious, but most essentially 
important variation of the name of this most extra- 
ordinary personage, with whom I am now to bring 
you acquainted. 

From the eleventh chapter of this ancient Chaldean 
Mythos, called the book of Genesis, in which he is 
■first mentioned as Abram, the Son of Terah, in the 
land of his nativity in Ur of the Chaldees (which 
demonstrates the Chaldean origin of his whole story), 
he is called Q^Q&S Ab-ram. But in the 17th chapter, 
God changes his name from Q*Q& into ,Qn"D& 
Ouvroime; assigning the never-to-be-forgotten reason 
for that change, 'Neither shall thy name any more 
be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; 
for a father of many nations have I made thee.' 

This passage, alone, is fatal to the pretence of the 
people called Jews, or of any other particular nation, 
to be called the descendants or children of Abraham ; 
since he was not to be the founder of a nation, or any 
peculiar people, — but 'a father of many nations ;' the 
common progenitor of all the families of the earth. 



ABRAHAM. 189 

A similar change of name, and for a similar reason, 
is announced with respect to Sarah, the wife of 
Abraham, in the 15th verse of this chapter : — 

'And God said unto Abraham, as for — *i^\l$ — thy 
wife, thoushalt not call her name v-^, but |"ntD shall 
her name be : and she shall be a mother of nations ; 
kings of people shall be of her.' 

The name Sair, afterwards ill pronounced and ill 
written Shari or Shira, was the name which the 
ancient Arabians originally gave to the Star Sirius /■* 
and literally rendered, signifies a Star. If, then, we 
chose to suppose the highest respect to be due to this 
Book of G.enesis, it is an evident outrage against it, 
and an egregious vanity and impudence, either to 
pretend or to admit the pretension of any particular 
nation or people upon earth to be peculiarly, or in 
any exclusive or distinguished sense, the descendants 
or race of this Universal Father and Universal Mother 
of mankind. 

Nor is there a single passage of either the Old or 
the New Testament, that recognizes or countenances 
a national or political claim of any race or community 
of men, that ever were upon earth, to be related to 
these entities, any more or any nearer than any other 
people. But contrary wise, the relation to Abraham and 
Sarah is, in every instance in which it is alluded to, 
spoken of exclusively as a moral, and not as a national, 
political, or hereditary relationship. There are no 
people on earth, — there never was a single individual 
of the human race, in any literal sense, descended 
from Abraham and Sarah, any more than there were 
ever any literal children of the Devil, or Sons of 
Belial. 

There never was any idiom of speech in the world, 
so common and univeral as that, by which, in the 

*Sir William Drummond's Origiues, Yol III., p. 460. 



190 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

Hebrew and all oriental languages, any thing which 
bore a resemblance to some other thing, or stood in 
some close association of comparison with it, was 
called the son of that thing, or its daughter. These 
languages had no adjectives, and were therefore driven 
on a necessity of expressing the qualities of nouns, 
by the use of other nouns, supposed to bear a relation 
to them ; and hence, they could not designate a 
righteous man, but as the son of something or some- 
body that had been supposed to possess a character 
similar to that which they would ascribe to him. The 
'generation of the faithful,' and the 'children of the 
wicked one,' were the necessary periphrases to express 
the characters of persons who were themselves faithful 
or wicked ; but not at all implying the real existence 
of the faithful and the vjicked, whose generation or 
children they were said to be. 

Thus we read continually such figures as — 'the 
Sons of Eli, were Sons of Belial' — that is, they were 
bad men : not literally Sons of Belial, nor had any 
such person as Belial really existed. They were only 
like to what was adverse or opposed. So, when Saul 
would call his son perverse and rebellious, he could 
find no other phrase for that sense, than 'Thou son 
of the perverse rebellious woman;' nothing being 
further from the meaning, than any idea of his really 
being the son of any such woman, or any woman of 
such a character having a real existence. 

Nor is any real existence implied, in the abstractions 
which are hieroglyphed under the names of Abraham 
and Sarah ; nor any real physical descent or continua- 
tion implied in that orientalism of speech, whereby 
good and virtuous persons are called the children, or 
sons and daughters of Abraham and Sarah. The 
relationship is always moral, — never national or 
personal. It was those only who resembled the 



ABRAHAM. 191 

character attributed to Abraham, or who studied or 
understood the astronomical science, veiled under the 
names and allegorical histories of Abraham and Sarah, 
who were the children of Abraham, as in that noble 
challenge of the evangelical prophet, 'Hearken to me 
ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the 
Lord, look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and 
to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged. Look 
unto Abraham, your father, and unto Sarah, that bare 
you.' 

As St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans (who 
certainly were not Jews nor of Jewish extraction), 
emphatically calls Abraham, 'the Father of us all;' 
grounding his argument on the text, 'as it is written, 
I have made thee a Father of many nations.' Ro- 
mans, iv. 17. And in his Epistle to the Greeks of 
Galatia, he as expressly designates Sarah, the wife 
of Abraham, 'the mother of us all.' 

I shall have the happiness of introducing you to 
a better acquaintance with our Mother Sarah in a 
future lecture : I must confine the present to the 
business of cultivating a due intimacy with the great 
universal Patriarch, our Father Abraham. 

The claim of the Jews, among ourselves, to be in 
an exclusive sense, the race of Abraham, can be 
founded on no other, and no better argument, than 
that of their resemblance to what appears a consider- 
able defect in the imaginary character of this proso- 
pon, — and that is, his extraordinary avarice. For 
the moment the Lord God had said to him, 'Fear not 
Abram, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great 
reward,' Abram immediately replied, 'Lord God, what 
wilt thou give me ?' Nor are we to think this a dis- 
respectful, or too familiar sort of language for Abraham 
to use towards the Almighty. But far from it ; since 



192 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

we read, that when the Lord spake unto Abram about 
his wife, 'he fell upon his face and laughed.' 

And, indeed, this Jewish characteristic of keeping 
an eye to the main chance, seems to have run in 
Abram's family, — as we find his grandson Jacob, in 
the very fervours of devotion and piety, not forgetting 
that those fervours would not keep the pot boiling, — 
he therefore intimates that godliness would never do 
for him, unless godliness should be profitable for the 
life which now is, as well as for that which is to come : 
he therefore puts up, in the 28th chapter of Genesis, 
that truly sublime and most rational form of prayer 
that ever was in the world : 'If thou, Lord, wilt keep 
me in this way that I go, and wilt give me food to 
eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to 
my father's house in peace : then shall the Lord be 
my God, and of all that thou shalt give unto me, I 
will surely give the tenth unto thee.' 

A thrifty bargain, you see. God was to give 
him a suit of livery, and allow him board-wages ; and 
then, he would allow God ten per-cent out of the profits 
of all his swindling and tricky trade. As his very 
name Jacob signified that he knew how to get his 
mutton without saying a word to the butcher about it. 

But our more immediate business is with his 
grandfather, Abraham. Our inquiry is, Who was 
Abraham? And it is of singular importance to 
observe, that he is designated the Son of Terah, 
(Terra), and of Ur of the Chaldees. His story, 
then, is not Jewish, not Hebrew ; not of Palestine, of 
Judea, or of Egypt, but of Chaldea, — not possibly, 
therefore, of the composition of any such person, as 
the supposed Moses must be supposed to be, — not 
possibly original in any Hebrew exhibition of it ; but 
necessarily derived to the Hebrew, Syriac, Phoenician, 
or Greek versions, from its native Chaldea. 



ABRAHAM. 193 

To Chaldea, then, and Chaldaic records, we must 
necessarily turn for the solution of our inquiries, as 
to the first types of this Chaldaic person, or personifica- 
tion of Abram, the son of Terah, of Ur of the 
Chaldees. 

Of the Chaldaic history, our knowledge is derived 
mainly from such fragments as the Greek writers have 
preserved to us, of the writings of Abydenus, Apollo- 
dorus, Alexander Polyhistor ; and Berosus, (of Baby- 
lon, the capital of the Chaldean empire,) a priest of 
the God Belus, who was cotemporary with Alexander 
the Great, of Macedon — that is, about 330 years 
before Christ. These all concur in representing the 
existence of political government, learning, and science, 
as of infinite antiquity in that country. 

As Abydenus and Berosus speak of regularly 
reigning sovereigns, through a period of ten sari, 
which is 36,000 years, and Apollodorus, of dynasties 
continued through four times that period, which is 
144,000 years : It never being to be forgotten, that 
whatever we may think of such dates, resting on such 
authorities, compared to our Mosaic accounts, which 
reckon the world but as 6,000 years old, the ancient 
Chaldee astronomers are proved to have been acquainted 
with the very highest discoveries of astronomical 
science, and to have calculated the measure of time, 
to the precision of the setting of a chronometer ; while 
the whole world besides, were as ignorant as religious 
people in all the world have ever been. 

The prophet Isaiah speaks of 'Babylon, the glory 
of Kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldean excellence.' 
Nor was it till after the return of the Jewish people 
from their Babylonish captivity, that the name of 
Abraham, or any portion of the Chaldaic story, was 
found in books that claimed a Jewish origin. The 
demonstration, then, is complete: it is a plagiarism* 

9 



194 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

They stole it from their masters, the Chaldeans ; and, 
without caring to acquaint themselves with the astro- 
nomical significancy, they adopted the veil of an 
occult science, as a tissue of real history, and pretended 
that that history was peculiarly their own. 

But as Abraham, in the very significancy of the 
name, signifies a Father, or the Father superlatively 
exalted: and, by inference, 'the father of many 
nations,' — reason and common sense would dictate, 
that we must look for the bearings, gist, and purpose 
of his history in some sense that shall be common to 
the understanding of many nations. And such a 
sense will be found only in restoring him to his proper 
place and relations 'in the kingdom of heaven.' The 
Chaldeans, the most skillful in astronomy of all nations, 
delighted to veil their astronomical science under the 
types of imagined histories. 

It would be seen, however, at once, by any 
attentive reader of the New Testament, that it could 
never have been intended that Abraham should be 
taken for a real personage, who had existed in any 
bye-gone era of the world : in that he is spoken of in 
the New Testament, as being as much in existence 
at the time of the writers or speakers in the New 
Testament, as he had ever been. He is addressed by 
the rich man in Hell, who lifteth up his eyes, and 
seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. 
Where the story is not said to be a parable, and has 
no more the appearance of being so, than many of 
the details of his parabolical history, in the Book of 
Genesis. And St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Galatians, 
refers even the most probable and apparently historical 
features of the detail, to an allegorical significancy. 
For, 4 it is written,' says he, 'that Abraham had two 
Sons ; the one hy a. bond-maid, the other by a free- 
woman; which things are an allegory' — that is, a 



ABRAHAM. 195 

fiction-, indicating no such thing, nor the like of 
any such thing as appears in the literal text of what 
is written. 

And sure, if his having two sons was a fiction, 
clothing some other and more exalted meaning, it is 
madness or wickedness to suppose that there could 
be any thing more than fiction in his setting about to 
murder one of his sons, and then seizing a ram 
caught by the horns in a thicket (just as the Ram of 
the Zodiac is caught by the horns in the thicket made 
by the crossing of the Equator by the Ecliptic at 
the Vernal Equinox), and sacrificing that ram in 
his stead. 

Assuming, as I must, for brevity sake, that your 
memories will supply what the Scriptures of the Old 
and New Testament deliver, touching the person and 
character of Abraham, I proceed now to the demon- 
stration of the important fact, that no such person as 
Abraham ever existed ; that his character and actions 
are altogether a fiction, and that that fiction was a 
part of the sublime system of occult science, which 
is traceable throughout all the mythology of the 
Pagan world. 

1st. Then, you have the admission in the sacred 
text, that Abram was the son of Terah, a native of 
Ur of the Chaldees. 

His is therefore a Chaldean story. 

The Chaldeans are admitted on all hands to have 
carried the science of astronomy to the highest pitch 
of perfection, and to have veiled their astronomical 
science under precisely such allegorical personifications 
and fabulous histories as this of Abraham appears 
to be. 

The name of xAbram, itself,. is absolutely an astro- 
nomical term, composed of the two syllables, Ab and 
Ram ; signifying Father of Elevation ; which is the 



196 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

astronomical characteristic of the planet Saturn ; the 
highest, and most devious of course of all the heavenly 
bodies. 

But not only is the name of Ab-eam most literally 
an astronomical term, so clearly indicating that no 
such person as Abraham ever existed, any more than 
we know that no such persons as Orion, Beltigeour, 
Arcturus, Aldebaran, or any other of the Stars, ever 
existed as real persons ; but the name of the place of 
his nativity, Ur of the Chaldees, is also strictly astro- 
nomical ; indicating that no such place ever existed, — 
the original text, -Vpsns p^r, signifying the light of 
the Chasdim. 

The Chasdim, translated the Chaldees, not being 
a national name, but a professional one; signifying 
the same as the magicians, the astrologers, the 
soothsayers, with which synonymous terms it is con- 
tinually associated. And thus the phrase, 4 I am the 
Lord, who brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees,' 
when divested of its enigmatical character, resolves 
itself into the language of an astronomical priest, 
meaning to say, 'I, the Master, evolved and laid down 
this allegorical picture of the phenomena of the planet 
Saturn, out of the light (or theory of the heavenly 
bodies) of the college of astronomers*' With which 
understanding, quadrats every phrase of our text, 
•The word of the Lord came unto Abram, in a vision.' 
The Word; that is, the Logos, discourse, science, 
understanding, of the Lord — that is, of the Sun, — 
came unto Abram, in a vision — that is, in a solar 
observation, taken by a quadrant at twelve o'clock. 
The word Bemechezch, does not mean in a vision, 
in any notion of a dream, or supernatural reve- 
lation ; but is, literally, in a sight ; in such a 
view as may be taken through a telescope ; which is 
the way in which all the n&o w&\ or science of the 



ABRAHAM. 197 

heavenly bodies have been acquired by men : so that 
we must actually go out of the way, and pervert and 
alter the meaning of words, and dig for folly and 
foolery, to evade the clear and obvious astronomical 
signiiicancy. As if we would have wonder, mystery, 
and nonsense; and would quarrel with God himself, 
if he would not give 'em nonsense, absurdity, and folly 
enough. As I have heard of the most sincere Christians, 
who, upon being told how the whale swallowed Jonah, 
have seriously declared that they would have liked the 
story the better, if Jonah had swallowed the whale. A 
priest could never outlie a fool's appetite for lying. 
But if we seek truth and reason, we may thus arrive 
at what we seek. 

Uniting the mythological history, the hieroglyphi- 
cal character, and the astronomical phenomena, of the 
planet Saturn, we shall achieve a clear unravelling of 
every iota of the story of Abraham. When God 
changed the name of Ab-Ram, or Father of Hight, 
or Elevation, the natural oriental superlative for 
Father of Heaven, or supremely exalted' Father, in- 
to Abraham : the addition is only by that of a letter, 
the Hebrew Ae! which makes a part of the divine 
name, 'which means,' says Bellamy, 'the Esse of 
the Deity;' and was a direct authentication of the 
divine honors paid to this exalted Father. 

But the name of Sarai, his wife, is also astronom- 
ical, and literally signifies a Star ; to which the addi- 
tion of the same part of the divine name, by the 
change into Sarah, in like manner, authenticates the 
divine honors paid to that Star. 

We cannot wonder, then, that in the gospel itself, 
we should find divine honors paid, and prayer ex- 
pressly addressed to, Abraham : as in that fervent 
aspiration of the rich man in hell, « Father Abraham. 
Have mercy on me/ without any intimation on the 



198 ASTKONOMICOTHEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

part of the person who speaks of the prayer, as having 
been said by another, that it was in any sense im- 
proper or heterodox. And indeed, what is called 
the Lord's Prayer, is addressed to Abraham, and not 
to God: inasmuch as, though Abraham's name be not 
expressly used, his distinctive astronomical attribute 
is used instead ; and that, in most marked contradi- 
stinction, and opposition to any name or attribute that 
could possibly apply to God. The faithful were there- 
fore taught to say. ' Our Father which art in Heaven:' 
because they believed that Abraham was their Father, 
and that that Father was in Heaven ; whereas God, I 
hope, is everywhere present. And they prayed, 'thy 
kingdom come,' because the planet Saturn, being the 
most remote of all the planetary bodies, his kingdom 
was the furthest off, and the longest in coming round : 
whereas the kingdom of God is not a kingdom to come, 
nor an infinitely remote millenium or golden age, as 
that of Saturn was supposed to be, — but is, and ever 
was, present in all places, and existing through all 



And they further prayed to Saturn, ' Give us this 
day our daily bread.' Because the very name of Sa- 
turn was derived from the -word Satu, to sow, as corn 
is sown in the earth, and Sator, the sower : and Sa- 
turn it was, who was believed in that happy golden 
age, to have taught mankind the art of agriculture, 
and to raise their bread out of the earth ; agreeably 
to which conceit, they represented him with his sickle 
or scythe in his hand, wherewith to cut down the corn, 
and piously pledged themselves to desire from him no 
more than that vegetable diet, that simple bread, with 
which the happy denizens of the golden age had been 
entirely content. And it was to be in a particular 
sense quotidian, or daily bread as being the especial 



ABRAHHM. 199 

gift of Saturn, the 7th of the planets, the 7th of the 
days of the week, and the genius or demon of time. 

And as the planet Saturn was the Deity addressed 
in that prayer, called the Lord's Prayer, though 
neither the name of Lord or God occurs once in that 
prayer : so his worshippers, in all ages and countries 
of the world, have steadily continued to keep their 
weekly Sabbath, on the day over which the planet 
Saturn astrologically presides, which is Saturday. 
And also, they have never ceased to inflict on their 
own persons a cruel commemorative exhibition of the 
fabulous suicide of Saturn, in the mythology, and of 
the real phenomenon of Saturn's belt, the starry ring 
which appears cut off from the body of that planet in 
the visible heavens. Thus you see the astronomical 
phenomena of the planet Saturn, the mythological 
story of the God Saturnus, and the sacred history of 
the patriarch Abraham, run in every respect, in every 
circumstance, in every iota, text for text, and line for 
line together ! 

The apostatizing chief of sinners, who forsook the 
faith of his ancestors, upon passing over from Juda- 
ism to Christianity — that is, from the worship of the 
planet Saturn to the worship of the Sun, exclaims : 
1 from henceforth let no man trouble me ; for I bear 
in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. What 
those marks are, deponents depose not, — but what 
the marks of the planet Saturn are, you will best learn 
by going to church, on the first day of January — that 
is, the day of Janus, who is the same as Saturn, the 
demon or genius of TIME, whose festival is analogically 
fixed to mark the first day of the year, and called the 
CIRCUMCISION ! 

But as Abraham is especially called the Father of 
many natio?is, we cannot wonder to find his charac- 
teristic sacrament observed among many nations : and 



200 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

his name itself, with very little variation, retained in 
the religions of all nations. He is the original Abram 
Usrael, or Angel of Death, of the Chaldeans. He is 
the Israel of the ancient Phoenicians, as the only 
Phoenician historian, Sanchoniathon, who wrote 1300 
years before our era, and whose text is preserved to 
us by Philo Biblius, of the first century, expressly 
assures us that the Phoenician, name of the planet Sa- 
turn is Israel. And Israel and Abraham are names 
constantly confounded, and used as perfectly synony- 
mous with each other, throughout the Old and New 
Testament. The God of Israel, and the God of 
Abraham ; the children of Israel, and the children of 
the stock of Abraham are but poetical variations of 
one and the self-same sense. So He is, the same 
Abraham in the Brahma (which is but Abraham, with 
the first letter put last) of the Hindoos, and the Ibra- 
him, which is Abraham, more delicately uttered, of 
the Arabs, the Abram Zerouan of the magi, the Ab- 
ram Zarman of the Persians, the Kronos of the Greeks, 
the planet Saturn of Astronomy, the God Saturnus 
of the whole Pagan world, and the personified genius 
of Old Time, whom you shall see to this day, retained 
in our Christian idolatry, even in our Christian tem- 
ples, sitting in all the acompaniments and emblems of 
his everlasting Godhead upon our clocks, and pointing 
to the dial plates, in indication that whatever other 
Gods we may please to address, it is he, and he alone, 
who shall reign for ever and ever. And to his honor 
is that anthem constantly reiterated, 'As it was in the 
beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without 
end.' 

But if our dulness can possibly mistake the hiero- 
glyphical identity of Abraham, offering up his only 
legitimate Son, with Time, who offers up all his 
children to heaven, who puts to death all whom he 



ABEAHAM. 201 

brings into life, and before the sweep of whose awful 
scythe, 'all flesh is as grass:' — how can we misunder- 
stand the written word of this God, who points with 
his finger to the legend, 'Verbum Domini manet in 
^Eternum ; ' — ' the word of the Lord remaineth for 
ever.' Or how not understand that he is the very 
JEsrael, the Angel of Death, who points to our obser- 
vance the dreadful admonition, — 'Memento Mori, ' — 
'remember to die:' or warns us, 'Fugiunt at Impu- 
tantur ;' — 'they fly, but are imputed ;' 'Ex hoc mo- 
mento pendet iEternites ;' — 'on this moment hangs 
eternity ;' — Or 'Qua redit nescitis horam;' — ' ye know 
not the hour of his return ;' or, as on the dial that 
fronts our highest court of justice, ' Discite Justitiam 
Monite ;' — ' Learn righteousness, being admon- 
ished?' 

But not only is the identity of the planet Saturn, 
with the Patriarch Abraham established in the physi- 
cal significancy of the name Abraham or father of 
Elevation-* — but the name of God, in relation to 
whom Abraham acquires the honor of being called 
the friend of God, the famous plural word EXcoscfi, 
on which our orthodox divines infer their doctrine of 
a plurality of persons in the Godhead, is none other 
than the very Chaldaic-astronomical name of the five 
satellites of the planet Saturn ; the Cronians or Cro- 
nies of Saturn, who, in the 1st of Genesis, say among 
themselves; — 'Let us make man in our image, after our 
likeness:' and who, in the 18th, after having eaten up a 
whole calf, tender and good, served up with butter and 
milk, say to themselves, ' Shall I hide from Abraham that 

* And in the identity of the name, RempJian, which is the Ara- 
bico-Persic name of the Planet Saturn, whom St. Stephen, in the 
Acts, expressly accuses the Jews of having continually worshipped, 
" Ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch' — that is, the planet Mars, 
and the Star of your god, Ramphan— that is, the planet Saturn." 

9* 



202 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

thing which I do, seeing that Abraham shall surely- 
become a great and mighty nation?' Where, then, 
shall we find the difference between the Patriarch 
Abraham and the God Saturn ? Saturn was the son of 
Terra, and Abraham was the son of Terah. 

Saturn married his own sister, who was a Star ; 
Abraham married his own sister, whose name signi- 
fies a star. The name of the planet Saturn is by 
the Phoenicians called Israel : the name of the Patri- 
arch Abraham is synonimous with the name Israel : 
Saturn had a great many sons, and yet had one par- 
ticular son called Jeoud,* which signifies his only son. 
Abraham had a great many sons, both by his maid 
Agar, and his Katurah ; as Ishmael, and Zimran, and 
Jokshan, and Midian, and Medan, and Ishbag, and 
JShoebag ; and yet had an only son, Isaac, whom he 
loved. Saturn offered up his only son Jeoud as a 
burnt offering, Abraham was about to offer up his 
only son, Isaac, as a burnt offering, Alas, you shall 
look for an essential difference between the two sto- 
ries, but in vain : they are but two editions of one and 
the self-same fable. 

The planet Saturn being the highest and most re- 
mote of all the planetary bodies, and measuring time 
by the highest career and slowest motion, — his mean 

* And Jeoud is likelier than any other name in the world to 
have been the real origin of the name Jews. For the accusative 
case of the name Jeoud is, literally, in every letter and point by 
which it can be written, Jeudem the very same as the nominative 
plural Jeudem, which we translate the Jews. Now, let the reader 
but observe what emphasis is laid on that distinction, both in the 
Old and New Testaments. ' In Isaac shall thy seed be called.' And 
remember that no seed or race of men in the world were ever called 
in Isaac, or derived their name from any name like that. But the 
uame Tfca the Jews, is a direct and immediate derivative 
from Jeud, the son of Saturn, in the Phoenician fable of San- 
choniathon. 



ABRAHAM. 203 

distance from the Sun being 906,000,000 of miles, 
would justly be entitled to the distinction of being called 
the Father of Heaven, and we have a literal and phy- 
sical exactitude in the oath of God to him, 'I will 
multiply thy seed as the Stars of heaven.' 

The Stars of Heaven being not merely a figura- 
tive comparison, but a literal sense of the terms, the 
Seed of Abraham. And thus the rich man, in AD- 
ees, in the first of the Sun, or Hell fire, looking up, 
would, with astronomical accuracy, see Abraham, with 
his shivering Lazarus, in his cold bosom, afar off — 
that is, exactly 906,000,000 miles off. 

The Ben Ouvroime, sons of Abraham, and Benni 
Yesroile, children of Israel, are nowhere spoken of 
in the Old Testament in any way that can connect 
them with any particular nation or people upon 
earth: the phrase being, in the Old Testament, per- 
fectly synonymous with its rendering in the New, 
'children of light' — that is, the Stars, which shall 
shine in the kingdom of their Father. 

And thus, throughout the New Testament, which 
is but a new version of the Pagan mythology, Abra- 
ham is precisely the same hieroglyph for Time, which 
Saturn was in the old system. Its metaphor for eter- 
nal duration is the phrase, t Abraham and his seed 
for ever.' To express an eternity gone by, or eter- 
nity, a-pa? i trpost, the phrase is, ' before Abraham was ' 
— that is, before time was. For an eternity, a-jparte- 
ante, the phrase is, 'when time shall be no more' — 
that is, when Abraham shall be no more. 

The hieroglyphical office of Abraham, as of the 
planet Saturn, to measure time, and to observe the 
day and the hour, is so emphatically marked, that not 
only have we the account of his execution of that chro- 
nometrical office, in the words, 'your Father Abra- 
ham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was 



204 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

glad:' But all interference of any other Deity, even 
of Christ, or his apostles, with that peculiar office, is 
excluded : ' It is not for you to know the times or 
the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own 
power.' Acts i. 7. And 'of that day and that hour, 
knoweth no man ; no, not the angels which are in 
heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.' Mark xiii. 
32. And 'tis a more than curious analogy, that our 
English word Father, derived from none of the clas- 
sical languages, but directly from the language of 
Egypt, the great cradle of astronomical science, and of 
all the religions that grew upon astronomical observa- 
tions, retains, to this day, its affinity to remoteness 
of space, distance of situation, and being the further 
or farther off; which is the definition of the planet 
Saturn, in relation to all the celestial bodies ; as the 
male is the father, or more distant relation to the off- 
spring of animals, and the mother only immediately 
the parent ! While the Hebrew and Chaldean , and 
Abba, Father, the essential root and etymon of the 
name Ab-Ram, or Father of Elevation, has passed 
through all the languages of Greece and Rome, in all 
the combinations of their prepositions, A7ro, Ab, and 
Abs, retaining still the leading idea of distance, re- 
moteness of situation, and lying without or beyond 
the orbits of all other bodies, which is still the astro- 
nomical identification of the planet Saturn. Nay, the 
Greek and Latin word Uarrjp and Pater, from whence, 
in all the languages of the earth, derived from those 
languages, are derived all words expressive of pater- 
nity, patrician, paternal, -patrimony, patriotic, and 
every word ever uttered by the tongue of civilized 
men, whose leading idea was borrowed from the idea 
of & father, was the distinctive and peculiar epitheton 
and title of the planet Saturn, as in that choriambic 
distich preserved by Bryant : — Jane Pater, Jane Tu- 



ABRAHAM. 205 

ens, Dive Biceps, biformis, O Cate rerum, Sator. O 
principhim Deorum! O Father Janus, protecting 
Janus, two-headed, doubled-formed Saint! O wise 
sower of things ? O Prince of Gods ! 

Now, let any man look needfully into the precise 
language of the sacred Scriptures (which I regret to 
know is what no Christian will be found to do) and 
see if he will not find a divine personage continually 
referred to as the Father, or the Father of Heaven, 
or the Heavenly Father, where it is certainly neither 
God, nor Jesus Christ, nor the Holy Ghost, that is 
meant, but one wholly distinct and infinitely superior 
to the whole Trinity, the Father of God himself, and 
the grandfather of Jesus Christ? whose names, attri- 
butes, and offices, are precisely those of Father Abra- 
ham, of the planet Saturn, and of the personified ge- 
nius of Time, of whom the apostle has those very 
words : ' He exalteth himself above all that is called 
God ;' doubtless, leaving that inferior title to the van- 
ity of the three persons of the Trinity, from whom he 
is contradistinguished by the exclusive style of the 
planet Saturn, the Father, to whom the apostle al- 
ludes (Coloss. ii. 2), in insisting on the importance of 
acknowledging the mystery of God, and of the Father, 
and of Christ, and in innumerable other passages, in 
which, in like manner, the Father is distinguished 
from God, as a wholly distinct and infinitely superior 
personage. 

And it is never enough to be observed that Jesus 
Christ, who is expressly called the Son of Abraham 
and the Son of the Father, (that is unquestionably 
of Father Abraham), never prayed himself, nor ever 
taught or authorized any body else to pray to God, 
but always to Abraham : never once is there such a 
prayer, from beginning to end, as should begin with 
an O God, or O Jesus, or O Holy Ghost ; nor did 



206 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

Jesus Christ, ever once utter such a word as O God ! 
But his forms of prayer always were, ' O Righteous 
Father! and ■ O Father Abraham!' Of which, the 
Holy Ghost himself is also witness, in that express 
assurance, that when the spirit of grace and supplica- 
tion is poured into our hearts, it does not set a man, 
like Sir John Falstaff in the comedy, crying God ! 
God ! God ! but whereby we cry Aby ! Aby ! Aby ! 
that is, Abba, Abraham, Father! and the man who 
cries any thing else, has certainly got no grace in him. 
And that we may not mistake who this Abba, or 
Abraham is, to whom alone our prayers are to be ad- 
dressed, nor ever lose sight of his identity with the 
planet Saturn, as the genius or great measurer of time, 
— not only are we bound to say our prayers with the 
regularity of clock-work, and to mark our days and 
nights by crying Aby ! or saying * Our Father which 
art in Heaven,' the first thing at getting up in the 
morning, and the last on going to bed at night, ' with 
groaning,' as the apostle says, 'which cannot be 
uttered:' But the prophet Daniel has given us his 
title of the Ancient of Days, and described his hiero- 
glyphic attributes. His garment was white as snow : 
his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as 
burning fire. Is it possible that a man can be such 
a dunce as ever to have put his eye to a telescope, 
and to mistake that double wheel of burning fire, which 
surrounds the cold body of the planet Saturn ? ' Thou- 
sand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand 
times ten thousand stood before him :' numbers, whose 
astronomical accuracy may be ascertained by refer- 
ence to the minutiae of astronomical calculations, 
beyond the scope of a general and popular dis- 
course. 

The absolute identity, then, of the planet Saturn, 
with the Patriarch Abraham ; and the certainty, that 



ABRAHAM. 207 

all that is related of Abraham in the sacred Scriptures, is 
allegorical, and consequently that no such person 
ever existed, and no such events ever occured, 
is established beyond all controversy. Among all 
the oriental nations, from whom this collection of ori- 
ental fables, which constitutes the two JEidour anions, 
or Orreries, which we call the Old and New Testa- 
ment, is derived, fiction was the organ of philosophy. 
The astronomical priests, the Chaldeans, the astrolo- 
gers, and the soothsayers, the magicians, and the wise 
men, as they are called, delighted in veiling their sci- 
ence of the phenomena of the universe, and their as- 
tronomical observations, under the guise of fictitious 
histories, imaginary personages, and marvellous ad- 
ventures : and when national curiosity or vanity called 
on them, as the persons most likely to know, to give 
some account of the early history of their country ; 
finding, that if they spoke the truth, they must not 
only disapoint public expectation, but confess their 
ignorance, they substituted fables for facts ; while 
under the veil of allegory, they conveyed lessons of 
instruction to those who would care to unravel the clue 
of their metaphorical language. 

And this duplicity, once given into, the mischief 
was done that could never be repaired. The priests 
who had once deceived, were never able again (had 
they been willing) to undeceive the people, or to rec- 
tify the erroneous impression which the first and gross 
metaphors of language had produced on the under- 
standing. The fable that was once got. up was ob- 
liged to be kept up ; inasmuch as the knave who could 
tell it with the greatest gravity, and put the longest 
face on't, was sure to make his fortune ; but of the 
good and honest man, who loved the truth, and sought 
and wished to communicate it, no man cried God bless 
him ! 



XII. -SARAH. 



" And the Lord said unto Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh? 
Then Sarah denied, saying, 1 laughed not,— for she was afraid. 
And he said, Nay, but thou didst laugh." — Genesis xviii., 13, 15. 



And is there among men, the man alive, who 
would expect to be accounted a rational being, who 
could say that he believed in his heart that it was 
really the Almighty Lord and Everlasting God of the 
whole universe, ' whom no man hath seen or can see,' 
who thus suffered himself to be laughed at and con- 
tradicted : or that such a scene ever did or ever could 
have happened, or so much as be conceived to have 
happened ? There is not. It will not, — it cannot be 
maintained: it is an outrage against the faculty of 
thought to think it. 

And the sincerest and most passionate asserter of 
the divinity of the sacred Scriptures, is absolutely 
obliged and compelled to admit, that something very 
different indeed from what appears in the gross letter 
of the text, must be intended, or it is sheer madness. 

But this admission once made, the rubicon is 
passed, and the inviolability of holy ground exists no 
longer. We are authorized and necessitated to call in 
the aid of critical learning, and to solve the enigma of 
language which cannot be denied to be enigmatical, by 
bringing in the lights of science and philology to shine 



SAKAH. 209 

upon it. The great certainty of the case is, that no 
such scene as is here described ever really occurred. 
And of that certainty, the great corollary and conse- 
quence is, that no such persons ever existed. They 
are personifications of abstract principles ; as the vir- 
tues, the graces, the fates, the loves, the furies of the 
ancient mythology were, and all the events in which 
they are spoken of, as concerned, are emblematical 
pictures of the phenomena of the universe. We treat 
the Scriptures with respect and reverence, — when with 
the clue thus put into our hands, we endeavor to wind 
the maze of their occult significancy. 

In every matter of inquisitive disquisition among 
men, it is held as an axiom of indisputable certainty, 
that that hypothesis which solves the phenomena, 
must be received as valid, and must as necessarily set 
aside and supersede every other hypothesis. Such a 
key does the astronomical reference which I have thus 
far induced, apply to the words of theology. In every 
point of contact have we found the one coinciding 
with the other : and the bolt obeying the direction of 
the key. What can science do more ? 

In an algebraic equation, how difficult soever, the 
premises of the reasoning are still but these, ' Given 
the equality of unknown quantities, to find the quan- 
tity which shall make them known.' 

And precisely such a problem, is the whole text of 
sacred theology, which presenting in its letter the most 
apparently monstrous combinations and egregious con- 
tradictions, demands from us that calm and patient 
-sitting down to it, and that diligent bringing to bear 
of every possible turn and direction that our thoughts 
can take, — whereby, and whereby alone we may ap- 
proach to the solution of the difficulty, and happily 
find what was so wild, and so disordered, falling into 
astonishing method, arrangement, and order. 



210 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

"So the pure limpid stream, when foul with stains, 
Of rushing torrents, and descending rains, 
Works itself clear, and as it runs refines ; 
Till, by degrees, the floating mirror shines, 
Reflects each flower that on its margin grows, 
And a new heaven in its clear bosom shows." 

Be patient, then, ye who love and speak the truth, 
of the discipline of heart and mind, which truth en- 
joins upon her votaries, — and let not the strangeness 
of a new idea startle you into offence, or into an ap- 
prehension that that idea, how strange soever it may 
seem to you, may not be the very unknown quantity 
itself, which the solution of the problem calls for, and 
which shall be capable in its application of answering 
all the requisitions of your data. It has done so, 
through all the difficulties of the creation, the histories 
of Adam and Eve, of Noah and the Deluge, and of 
Abraham. We come now to its applicaticn to the 
character of the first distinctly marked and materially 
important heroine or feminine personification of sacred 
theology ; — Sarah, the wife of Abraham. The busi- 
ness of our inquiry, then, on this occasion, is to deter- 
mine who or what was Sarah ? 

Now, Sirs, let us arrange the absolute data, sup- 
plied by the sacred text itself, to assist our inquiry. 
It is with reference to Sarah, most especially, and with 
reference to what appears in her history most histori- 
cal, most probable, most likely to have really occur- 
red, that the apostle, in his Epistle to the Galatians, 
pledges the authority of his inspiration (to those who 
may believe him to have been inspired), that it was 
not historical ; that it never did occur, that something 
wholly different from what appears in the letter of the 
story was intended, and that it was not intended that 
the story itself should, in any part or sense of it, be 
taken as a real history. 

' For it is written that Abraham had two sons : 



SAEAH. 



211 



the one by a bond-maid, the other by a free-women. 
But he who was of the bond- woman was born after the 
flesh ; but he of the free woman was by promise, — 
which things are an allegory. For these are the two 
covenants, the one from Mount Sinai, which gender- 
eth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is 
Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem, 
which now is, and is in bondage with her children. 
But Jerusalem, which is above, is free ; which is the 
mother of us all.' Galatians, 4. 

As far, then, as we have the guidance of Scripture 
itself, the reality of the person of Sarah, as also of her 
handmaid Agar, is entirely given up : and we are re- 
ferred to some far higher and sublimer sense to any 
that appears in the mere shell and husk of the appa- 
rent history. 

Sarah is Jerusalem, a city ; but not a city built 
by human hands, — not that Jerusalem which is 
in Palestine, or anywhere on this terraqueous globe. 
But Jerusalem, which is above, and which the apos- 
tle tells his Galatian converts (who were not Jews, 
nor ever would have admitted their descent from Jew- 
ish ancestors) ' is the mother of us all.' 

If, then, there were no personal reality in the 
character of this ' mother of us all,' can we, without 
the grossest impiety and maddest folly, imagine that 
there was any personal reality in the character of the 
Lord, or any historical occurrence of such a scene as 
that of the Lord suffering himself to be laughed at, 
and bandying the lie with an old woman : and he said, 
1 You did,' and she said, ' I didn't ;' where idiotcy itself 
must blush at it ! 

But observe now, I pray, the process of our de- 
monstration, and reject the whole, I beseech ye, as 
folly and impotence, if anywhere you detect but the 
shadow of a defect of proof ; — or if it be possible, with 



212 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

intelligence and candor to say, that there ever was a 
matter of like antiquity, that ever passed for truth 
among men, whose truth was more clearly established, 
or whose demonstration was more complete, than this. 

The apostle assures you, that the main circum- 
stances related of Abraham and Sarah are allegorical. 

You cannot take the circumstances detailed in the 
text, otherwise than as containing some hidden and 
allegorical signincancy, e'en an' you were to try to do so. 

Now ! you read that those personages or personi- 
fications, or whatsoever or whosoever they were, this 
Abraham and Sarah, and their story, be what it may, 
was of Chaldaic origin : their very definition, in the 
sacred text itself, is, Abraham and Sarah, of Ur,of 
the Chaldees. Follow, then, the clue thus put into 
your hands, and you arrive at the admission, that 
the— 

1. People of Chaldea, the first and deepest skilled 
in astronomical science of all people, professed and 
delighted in veiling their astronomical science, under 
precisely such allegorical histories as that of Abraham 
and Sarah appears to be. 

2. That they were followed in the rage for doing 
this, by the astronomical priests of India, of Phoeni- 
cia, Egypt, Greece, and Italy. 

3. That their first drafts and sketches of these 
imaginary histories, were plagiarised and carried over 
from one nation and language to another, even when 
the sense and significancy was entirely lost : and thus 
have we, in the Book of Genesis (which is a hasty 
and careless compilation of several versions), those 
ridiculous repetitions, which betray that the compiler 
himself did not even cast his eyes back to observe 
what he had written, nor reck his own read. He tells 
his tales twice over, and you have two editions of all 
the leading features of his story. His Abraham, in 



SAEAH. 213 

the 12th chapter, sells his wife to Pharaoh, King of 
Egypt, and the Lord plagued Pharaoh: and in the 
20th, he sells her again to Abimelech, King of Gerar, 
and the Lord again plagued Abimelech. In the chap- 
ter immediately preceding our text, it was Abraham 
who laughed at God, and laughed till he could not 
stand, at precisely the same spurcity, while in our 
text it was Sarah who laughed at it, and incurred the 
ridiculous rebuke of the Omnipotence. 

The Princess Sarah, then in the most respectful 
understanding of this laughter, which must be under- 
stood allegorically, and from the name of Isaac, her 
miraculously born son, which literally signifies laugh- 
ter, cannot but recall to every classical mind, both 
the epithet and character of the Queen of Smiles. 
And assuming now, as I must, the completeness of 
the demonstration, which proves the identity of the 
Patriarch Abraham with the God Saturnus, of the 
Pagan mythology, and the planet Saturn of the visi- 
ble heavens: Our problem now is, to wind through 
the analogous relations of the theological Sarah, to the 
theological Abraham ; as answering to their great 
archetypes in the Pagan mythos, and their primary 
suggestion in the visible phenomena of nature. And 
here, Sirs, observe ye, that it is of the very first im- 
portance in this great science, to guard the mind from 
the mistake of supposing that a difference of names, 
or a very considerable difference in the inci- 
dents of the allegory, or even a wholly different alle- 
gorical delineation, doth imply or suppose any differ- 
ence at all in the archetype or original substantive 
science, so variously delineated. 

The same planet, viewed in different aspects, or 
presenting varied phenomena, or understood with 
more or less astronomical science, must necessarily 
originate as many varied forms of the allegorical veil 



214 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

thrown over it. And as that allegorical veil was 
more or less delicately constructed, according to the 
different degrees of refinement, or policy of the allego- 
rists, would its drapery nicely fit in, and transparently 
exhibit the beautiful form of the truth which it in- 
vested, or coarsely and loosely hid, and bury it from 
the dull eye of popular superstition. 

Hence we find an infinite variety of names and 
epithets, where it is still but one and the self- same 
physical phenomenon, which is, and ever was, the 
unadulterated and unadulterable basis and type of the 
allegorical delineation. We meet with infinite repeti- 
tions and revivals, under immaterial variations of the 
same kind of a story : in which, however, multiform 
and heterogeneous the mode of exhibition, our criti- 
cism detects, and can demonstrate, the identity of the 
one great leading idea, which, like the deity that 
changes through all, was jet in all the same. 

There have been a thousand versions of the story 
of Orestes ; and Orestes, it may be, has been honored 
under a thousand names, and- under as many varied 
ways of narrating his tale of sorrows. So have there 
been ten thousand varied stories of creations, destruc- 
tions, and restorations of the world, — and ten thous- 
and Adams and Eves, Noahs, Abrahams, and Sarahs, 
as Universal Fathers and Universal Mothers of the 
human race, according to the varied fashions of human 
vanity and folly, and as the arrogance of human ignorance 
supplied, from the fancifully exhibited phenomena of 
the starry heavens, the total want of records, or traces 
of the fate of their ancestors upon earth, which must 
have obtained, before the art of writing, or any other 
mode of perpetuating the memory of what was passed, 
had become common among men. 

Hence, as we have a father of the human race in 
Adam, who is the constellation Bootes ; we have the 



SARAH. 215 

same imaginary character revived in a second Adam, 
whose astronomical identity is expressed in his epithet, 
' the second Adam is the Lord from Heaven' — that is, 
the Sun, the name Ad-ham, literally signifying, the 
Lord, the Everlasting Fire — that is, the Sun. 

Thus have we seen the Abram, another Univer- 
sal Father, whose name, compounded of the Hebrew 
and Syriac words, Ab and Ram, Father of Elevation, 
is the astronomical character of the planet Saturn ; 
whose name again, derived from Satu, to sow, and 
Sator, the sower, expresses that Abraham was 'the 
sower that went forth to sow his seed ;' and whose 
Phoenician name was literally Israel, actually renewed 
again in the character of Israel, as if Israel had been 
another and distinct personage. 

And precisely thus, have we the twelve signs of 
the Zodiac, allegorized in the twelve Patriarchs, Ol- 
sons of Saturn — that is, of Israel, as the inferior and 
intrajacent stars of our system would necessarily be 
called. And these, again, re-edited in the twelve 
Great Gods, or Dii- Consent es, Jupiter, Apollo, Mars, 
Mercury, Neptune, and Vulcan, Juno, Minerva, 
Venus, Diana, Ceres, and Vesta, of the Pagan mythos. 
And these, again, in the twelve apostles of the gospel; 
in the twelve gates of the Apocalyptic city ; in the 
twelve Stars of the celestial crown ; in the twelve 
fruits of the tree of life ; in the twelve legions of angels ; 
the twelve foundations, twelve pearls, twelve stones, 
twelve altars, and eternally-recurring astronomical num- 
ber twelve, or multiples of twelve, in every relation and 
reference to the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven: thus 
proving, with the certainty of arithmetical induction, 
that it was never any other than the visible astronom- 
ical heaven that was to be understood by that king- 
dom, and never any other than the phsenomena of the 
heavenly bodies that was intended in the imagined 



216 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

histories, and imaginary persons, set before us, alike 
in the Christian and Pagan mythology. 

Thus the name itself of Sarah, literally signifies a 
Star, and is the basis of that self-same Asta/rte, or 
Ashtoreth, the Goddess of the Zidonians, sometimes 
singular, sometimes plural, according as it is a single 
planet or a whole constellation, that is to be designat- 
ed by that name : just as the name of God is plural 
with a singular signification, or singular with a plural 
significancy, according as it is a particular Star, or the 
constellation ; or group of Stars ; the Sun, or the 
planet, with his attendant satellites, inclusive, which 
is meant under that name. 

Thus, the perfect equality of character, and simi- 
larity of nature, between Sarah and the Lord, supplies 
us with an apology for Sarah laughing at the Lord, 
as Venus laughs at Jupiter in the Pagan mythos ; and 
the Morning Star may be said to smile at the promi- 
ses of the dawning day, in the real phenomena of the 
visible heavens. The principal source of difficulty to 
the unskilled in this great science is, that as the 
planet Venus is sometimes the morning, and some- 
times the evening Star, and is alternately seen under 
different aspects, — so we are continually encountered 
with different names, and varied allegorical represen- 
tations, — where no essential difference really exists. 
And one and the self-same planet will be really 
intended under different names, and diversified allego- 
rical exhibitions, as that planet is considered in its state 
of occultation or emergence ; as sinking below the 
horizon in the west, and consequently a suffering 
and crucified Savior, or rising again into the east, 
and becoming, in turn, a glorified and triumphant 
Redeemer. 

So it is the self-same ' Mother of us all,' in the 
Eve of Paradise, who is revived again, in the same 



SARAH. 217 

conceit re-modelled, in- Sarah, the Princess of Smiles, 
and mother of the miraculously born Isaac, whose 
very name is retained in the Astarte of the Zidonians, 
the Sarah Apis, or Serapis of Egypt, — and whose 
very attribute of that eternal laughter was sculptured 
in the exquisite Venus Urania, or Heavenly Venus of 
Praxiteles, with the mouth a little open, and the lip 
so nicely turned, as if so archly smiling she would 
fain deny that she had smiled at all ; and as if the 
very allegorical dialogue were going on while you 
gazed on her transcendent beauty, and she were re- 
torting her pretty Jib, 'I laughed not,' to her entran- 
ced admirer, who couldn't but say, * Nay, but thou 
didst laugh!' 

For the scriptural allegory has called our observ- 
ance to note that Sarah was very fair, and very 
young ; and what is very chiefly to be noted, none 
the less fair nor the less young when she was ninety 
years old. But even then, like the personified virtue 
of Proclus : 

" August she trod, yet modest was her air, 
Serene her eye, yet darting heavenly fire, 

Still she drew near, and nearer still more fair, 
More mild appeared ; yet such as might inspire 

Pleasure corrected with an awful fear, 
Majestically sweet, and amiably severe." 

The scriptural allegorist is so evidently pleased 
with this personified Universal Mother, who is the 
Cybele, or Mother of the Gods of the mythology, 
the Virgin Deipara, or God-bearer of the Zodiac, the 
Virgin Mary, or Christ-bearer of the gospel, and the 
Wonder, or Woman in Heaven of the Apocalypse, -=- 
that having allegorically buried her in the allegorical 
cave of Machpelah, he revives the self-same character 
again in the person of Eebekah, to be the wife of 

10 



218 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUKES. 

Isaac, with the self-same story of her being his sister, as 
well as his wife, and her being exceeding handsome, 
as Sarah had been, and Isaac selling her again to 
Abimelech, King of Gcrah, just as Abraham had sold 
his Sarah to the same Abimelech, King of Gerah. 

And having done with her, in the character of 
Rebekah, the wife of Isaac, — he actually brings her 
on the stage again, the third time in the character of 
Rachael, the wife of Jacob, who is the same goddess of 
beauty and of smiles, and makes precisely the same 
covenant with her maid Billah, which Sarah had made 
with her maid Hagar. 

Thus proving to demonstration, that no real per- 
sonage or real history was ever intended ; that Sarah, 
Rebekah, Rachael, like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, 
are but one and the self-same personification of the 
imaginary genii of the Stars ; that not one cf them 
ever existed as real personages upon earth, nor was 
it ever intended that these charades and riddles that 
veiled the detail of astronomical science should ever 
have been taken for historical facts. There is not a 
vestige, not a feature of historical fact in any part of 
sacred theology, as that very word theology itself 
might have admonished us. The word deog which 
we translate God, being literally a planet, as aorrjp is 
a star : so theology and astrology are perfectly syno- 
nymous terms : and the Divine Mother, from the first 
heroine in the book of Genesis to the last heroine of 
the book of Eevelations is a star. 

The woman clothed with the Sun, and having the 
Moon under her feet, as to whom stupidity itself must 
actually take pains to be so stupid as to avoid seeing 
the astonomical significancy has never been any other 
than the self-same Seclenidesde Darzama,* the August 

* Adrenedefa, Arabice ; deoritog Graece ; Deipara, Latin. 



SARAH. 219 

Virgin of the Zodiac, who, whether as Sarah, Rebekah, or 
Rachael ; whether as the wife of the Goldsmith Abraham, 
the Blacksmith Vulcan, or the Carpenter Io Sa^pe. the 
laughing Sarah, or the smiling Venus, — whether as 
the Genius of the Old Paradise of Genesis, or of the 
the New Jerusalem of the Revelations, the Cybele of 
Greece,* the Isis Omnia of India, the Sarah Apis of 
the Egyptians, or the Seraphim of the Hebrews, is, 
and never was other than a variously exhibited per- 
sonification of the maternal principle of vitality or 
life, expressed in the name itself of Eve, the 
' Mother of us all,' and in and by whom we and all 
things live, and move, and breathe, and have our 
being. 

That the Hebrew Sarah really was none other 
than the Goddess Isis, the Great and Supreme Maternal 
Deity of Egypt, is demonstrable, not merely in the 
perfect resemblance of attributes and character, but in 
the identity of the derivation of the names. 

The promise to Abraham — so remarkable, re- 
peated — that ( in Isaac should his seed be called : in 
Isaac, whom Sarah should bear to him,' — could have 
been fulfilled in no race of people but such as should 
bear a name derived from Isaac. So did not Hebrews, 
Israelites or Jews : but so did the children or wor- 
shippers of Isis, whose religious rites, celebrated 
through a thousand ages, were known under the name 
of the Isiac rites, and whose self-supposed descend- 
ants were scattered through every country of tne 
earth, and recognized as the Gens Isacida ; or the 
Isakian race. The Mother Sarah, by the most natu- 
ral and obvious mutation, deriving her name Isis from 
her distinguished honor in being the Mother of Isaac. 
And as ' in Isaac should her seed be called,' Isis 

* The Venus Genetrix of Rome. 



220 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

rather than Sarah, would be her favorite and prevail- 
ing name. 

Apuleius introduces Isis, giving .this account of 
herself : ' I am Nature, the mother of all things, 
mistress of the elements, the beginning of ages, the 
sovereign of Gods. My divinity alone, though mul- 
tiform, is honored with different ceremonies and under 
different names. The Phrygians call me the Pessin- 
untian Mother of the Gods: the Athenians, the 
Cecropian Mother ; the Cyprians, the Paphian Venus ; 
the Cretans, Diana Dictynna ; the Sicilians, the Sty- 
gian Proserpine ; the Eleusinians, the Old Goddess 
Ceres ; some Juno, some Bellona ; but the Oriental 
Ethiopians and Egyptians honor me with peculiar 
ceremonies, and call me by my true name, Isis.' 

In the temple at Sais, was the famous inscription — 
' I am whatsoever was, is, and shall be : no mortal 
has yet drawn aside my veil ; and the fruit which I 
brought forth is the Sun.' 

There is another inscription still extant on a very 
ancient column — ' I am Isis, Queen of Egypt ; I first 
invented the use of corn ; I am the mother of King 
Horus ; — I shine in the Dog Star.' Morus, again, 
being the Egyptian name of the Sun. 

Her statues represent Isis with the turrets of a 
city upon her head, thus identifying her with what 
Sarah is, in the apostolical solution of the hieroglyph 
declared to have been New Jerusalem. And that she 
is the same, and still worshipped under the same 
name, passed on into the type of the Virgin Mary, is 
manifest in the noble edifice the church of Notre Dame, in 
the city of Paris ; that city to this day being a worship- 
per of the Great Goddess Isis, and taking its name 
itself of Paris from a clipping of the Greek name ILapa 
laig which literally signifies under the protection of 
Isis, into Par ise. 



SARAH. 221 

It is impossible; it is inconceivable; that such innu- 
merable points of undesigned and unpremeditated coinci- 
dence could have obtained between the Jewish, the Pagan, 
and the Christian system : and that, too, in countries 
the widest apart, in ages far removed from each other, 
and in languages that were to each other mutually 
unknown, unless all had been derived from some type 
common to all, and that type presents itself nowhere 
but in the inscriptions of that vaulty arch, so high 
above our heads, — wherein, as we more and more con- 
template the phenomena presented to our eyes, and 
compare therewith the allegorical language, both of 
sacred and profane theology, do we more clearly per- 
ceive, and more convincingly understand, that the one 
is derived from the other, and detect thereby the fal- 
lacy and folly of any pretended historical basis for any 
religion whatever. 

Mathematical demonstration itself knows no argu- 
ment stronger than the argument of coincidence. 
When two triangles coincide with each other in every 
point of the three lines which constitute them, and 
occupy precisely the same space, — those two triangles 
are said, in mathematical language, to be equal to 
each other, and to be virtually one and the same tri- 
angle. And to such a coincidence, such an entire 
setting of the one upon the other, between the Jewish, 
Pagan, and Christian mythologies, and their common 
astronomical archetypes, — approach we nearer and near- 
er, at every stage of our advance in these delightful 
studies. 

I must now recall the demonstrations which have 
evinced the identity of Abraham with the planet 
Saturn, but have to add only the coincidences of the 
allegorical picture of Sarah, the wife of Abraham, in the 
Genesis, with Yesta, the wife of Saturn, in the Mythos. 

The name Vesta is a derivative of the radical Ast, 



222 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

Asta, Esta, and Hestia, all of them signifying fire, — 
as the same Sarah signifies a Star (Sirius) : Vesta 
was married to her brother Saturn, as Sarah was mar- 
ried to her brother Abraham ; and Isis was married to 
her brother Osiris. 

Vesta, the celestial fire, appears again under the 
names of Ops and Rhea, which signify wealth and 
means, the characteristics of the wife of the wealthy 
Abraham. 

Vesta bears to Saturn the twins Jupiter and Juno ; 
as Sarah, in her secondary character of Rebekah, 
bears to Isaac the twins Esau and Jacob. 

Vesta, as Astarte, the Queen of Heaven, was be- 
lieved to have taught mankind the art of architecture, 
and her images exhibited her as wearing a crown com- 
posed of the battlements or turrets of a fortified city : 
but Sarah, even in the apostolical interpretation of the 
allegory, is expressly declared to be the City of Je- 
rusalem ; not a Jerusalem which now is, and is in 
bondage with her children, but Jerusalem which is 
above, which is the mother of us all. 

So that as we are commanded in the Old Testa- 
ment to seek the Lord, so we are enjoined in the New 
to seek the Lady — that is, the Lamb's wife ; ' the 
holy city ; New Jerusalem, coming down from God 
out of Heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her 
husband.' Rev. xxi. 3. And we have the assurance 
of the apostle to the Hebrews, that when Abraham 
was paying his addresses to Sarah, he was looking 
for a city, fc which had foundations, whose builder and 
maker was God.' And all the faithful, who are said 
to have died in faith — that is, in the proper under- 
standing of the science of astronomy, or as they are 
expressly defined, they who say such things — that is, 
who talk in this enigmatical and hieroglyphical way, 
' declare plainly that they seek a city.' 



SARAH. 223 

And here have we all possible and conceivable 
identifications of that castle or turret-crowned Mother 
of the twelve Great Gods, as Sarah was the Great 
Mother of the twelve Patriarchs, and as the Heavenly- 
Jerusalem, which was Sarah herself, was built on the 
twelve foundations. And as we, the Church of God, 
are built upon the foundation of the twelve prophets 
and twelve apostles, Jesus Christ himself being the 
chief corner-stone — that is, the capital of the pillar, of 
which the heathen idolatry was the shaft, and astroini- 
cal science the base. 



XIII— MELCHISEDEC. 



The Lord hath sworn, and he will not repent : Thou art a priest 
for ever after the order of Melchisedec.'' — Psalm 4. 



Melchisedec! Who or what was hel I shall 
show you now, in the solution of this curious question, 
which no Christian commentators have ever yet had 
courage or honesty fairly to grapple with, a resulting 
demonstration which shall bring forth a certain knowl- 
edge of something worth knowing, which was not known 
before. 

Melchisedec, appear! Melchisedec, mysterious 
entity ! I summon thee, by thy great name Molochi 
Tteduk, King of Righteousness. By thy high title, 
Cohen-El-JElion* priest of the most high God. 
BadcXev Epr]vrjg King of Peace ! anarup afirjrcjg, 
ayeveaAoyrjTog, without father, without mother, with- 
out descent, having neither beginning of days nor 
end of life, but made like unto the Son of God, 'a 
priest to perpetuity !' 

1 1 adjure thee, by the living God, that thou tell 
us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God V 

* El Eon — God, the Being, or Eon : hence Lion : hence the 
Greeks made kvcjv, Dog. 

vol. n. 



MELCHISEDEC. 225 

Tims every phrase and form of expression found 
in either the Old or New Testament, tends to exalt 
our ideas of this mysterious character, and to impress 
upon our minds that something more, far more than 
would strike us on a cursory reading, is intended and 
conveyed under the images. The poetry of the lan- 
guage is exquisite, — the sublimity of idea of the very 
highest order of didactic grandeur : so that one knows 
not whether more to admire the insensibility of the 
Christian community to the graces and beauties of the 
composition, or the stupidity and moral wickedness 
of their patient willingness to be ignorant, and unwill- 
ingness to discover its real significancy. 

I wish it were not true that there are no persons 
on earth so ignorant of the contents and purport of 
the Scriptures as those who profess the most devoted 
faith in them. They who have continually in their 
mouths the text, * Search the Scriptures,' are them- 
selves the most careless, negligent, and inobservant 
readers that any Scriptures in the world ever had. 

And in the teeth of the solemn entreaty of the 
apostle, touching the character and person of Melchi- 
sedec: * Now consider how great this man was :' you'll 
not find a Christian upon earth that ever set himself 
to consider how great this man was, or who he was, 
or whether he was a man at all. 

I propose, however, to consider this matter at all 
hazards, and by unravelling the clue through the only 
three passages of the Scriptures in which it is referred 
to (the 14th of the Book of Genesis, the 110th Psalm, 
and the 7th of the Epistle to the Hebrews), with such 
aids of extraneous elucidation as my research has 
supplied, to lay before your conviction the most am- 
ple and irrefutable demonstration of a truth whbh, 
thus discovered, like the discovery of the hidden quan- 
tity in an equation, will solve all the difficulties of the 

10* 



226 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

problem, and bear on all the relations on which the 
mind can wish for satisfaction, or be capable of cer- 
tainty, in these interesting studies. 

Of all certainties, nothing can be more certain than 
that whatever respect be due to the authority of the 
Book of Genesis (which is a subsequent consideration), 
this Melchisedec is, in the 14th chapter of that book, 
introduced as as real a personage as Abraham. The 
author of that book supposes him to be a personage 
with whom his readers could hardly be unacquainted, 
and of whom it was enough to say that he was King 
of Salem, that he brought forth bread and wine, and 
he was priest of the Most High God. And he blessed 
Abraham, and said : Blessed be Abraham of the Most 
High God. 

Who then is the Most High God? 

In pursuing studies of this curious speculation, and 
unspeakably delightful entertainment, we must have 
no prejudices, no prepossessions, no theories to support, 
no systems to subserve, but should follow through all 
issues, as evidence conducts, to whatever conclusion 
truth may establish: we are to derive our knowledge 
from our authorities, not to bring it to them ; an anti- 
cipation of the result is treason against the inquiry. 

That extraordinary epithet, the Most High God, 
first occurs in this enigmatical passage, as also the 
term priest, and again occurs not till, in like manner, 
it is found in the mouth of an alien, a stranger, and 
even an enemy to the race of Israel. ' Balam, the son 
of Beor, hath said, and the man whose eyes are open 
hath said, He hath said, which heard the words of 
God, and knows the knowledge of the Most High, I 
shall see him, but not now ; I shall behold him, but 
not nigh : there shall come a star out of Jacob, and a 
Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, which shall smite the 
corners of Moab.' 



MELCHISEDEC. 227 

Nothing can more necessarily lead to infinite mis- 
takes and endless confusion, than the folly and urea- 
sonableness of carrying back our ideas of particular 
terms, as interpreters of the terms of ages and nations, 
which certainly attached no such ideas to those terms, 
and had no such notions (and could by no possibility 
have had them), as our improved science, and conse- 
quently enlarged range of thought, has familiarized 
to us. 

In the curious fragment of Sanchoniathon, a Phoe- 
nician historian, who flourished before the Trojan war, 
or at least 1300 years before our era, whose text has 
been translated out of the Phoenician into Greek, by 
Philo Biblius, and preserved by Eusebius, we learn 
that this Elton, this Hypsistos, this Most High God, 
was a certain man, who, with his wife Beeouth, 
dwelt near Buibel, Byblos, in Phoenicia, and begat a 
son named Adam, because he was formed out of the 
earth, and that this father of Abraham, this Most 
High God, was killed by wild beasts. This hiero- 
glyphical language evidently points to the Phoenician 
astrology ; in which the Sun, literally the Most High, 
is allegorized under the image of a man, and the wild 
beasts which slay him are the Zodiacal animals, more 
especially the wild boar, under whose ascendency the 
Sun seems annually to expire in the Winter, as he 
revives in the Spring. And ' the knowledge of the 
Most High,' which formed the great matter of boast to 
the prophet Balaam, and gained him the credit of su- 
pernatural wisdom, was nothing more than his skill in 
the science of astronomy, and of the laws by which 
the highest of the heavenly bodies regulates the suc- 
cession of the seasons and the motions of the whole 
planetary system. 

But whatever sense be given to that manifestly 
astronomical term, the Most High God, nothing is 



228 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

more obvious than that this Melchisedec, priest of the 
Most High God, appears as a sort of personage for 
whom the author of the Book of Genesis challenges 
far higher respect than for the Patriarch Abraham, and 
assumes that his readers could have no need of more 
particular information. 

A similar abruptness characterizes the introduction 
of this mysterious personage, in the 110th Psalm: 
'The Lord said unto my Lord (or Jehovah said unto 
Adonis), Sit thou on my right hand until I make 
thine enemies thy footstool.' On which mysterious 
passage, the Jesus of Mathew xxii. 42. assuming 
that Adonis and Christ were one and the same person, 
enigmatically proves that Christ was not, and could 
not, have been in any sense the son of David. 'The 
Lord said unto my Lord,' had been the words of 
David. 'If David then called him Lord, how is he 
his son?' is the challenge of the speaker in the gospel, 
upon those words : 'And no man was able to answer 
him a word, neither durst any man from that day 
forth ask him any more questions.' 

'The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out 
of Zion. Rule thou in the midst of thine enemies.' — 
Bible Version. 

'In the day of thy power shall the people offer 
thee free-will offerings with an holy worship. The 
dew of thy birth is of the womb of the morning. The 
Lord sware and will not repent. Thou art a priest 
for ever, after the order of Melchisedec' — Prayer Book 
Version. 

Who does not see, that this Melchisedec, this 
'King of Righteousness,' thus spoken of as so much 
higher in dignity than that Lord to whom the Lord 
sware, and on whom he could confer no higher dignity 
than an eternal priesthood, secondary, and according 
to his order, could have been none of woman bom? 



MELCHISEDEC. 229 

As is expressly asserted in the whole argument 
of the Epistle to the Hebrews, 'without father, with- 
out mother, without descent, having neither begin- 
ning of days nor end of life.' 

To evade this evidence, the Unitarian editors of 
the New Testament have inserted in italics the word, 
'-recorded* before father and mother : so that in their 
translation, the text stands, 'without recorded father, 
without recorded mother, without pedigree ;' and they 
have excused their interpolation with a note explanatory, 
'of whose father, mother, pedigree, birth, and death 
we have no account.' Wakefield,' they say, 'prefers 
this intelligible, though free translation of the original, 
to what must appear a strange paradoxical account, to 
common readers.' 

Thus we see what shuffling, evasive tricks, divines 
will have recourse to, and how they will dig, as it 
were, into the earth, and run away from, and falsify 
the text of their own Scriptures, to hide themselves 
from the danger of letting in too much light on the dark 
archives of a barbarous antiquity. 

In order to support their Unitarian scheme of 
reducing their Son of God to a mere man, and feigning 
an historical existence for a being which certainly 
never did exist, they have found it necessary to reduce 
their Melchisedec also to the same level : to avoid the 
paradox of his being 'without father, without mother, 
and without descent ;' they have found no paradox in 
supposing the apostle to argue against his own argument, 
and to have laboured to show us how distinguished a 
being this Melchisedec was, by showing us that he 
had no distinction at all ; and a moment's fair dealing 
with the text of Scripture will most convincingly solve 
the whole problem. 

No words in which ideas of any sort could be con- 
veyed, could be more explicit than those in which the 



230 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURSES. 

apostle assures us that this Melchisedec had ' no father, 
no mother, no descent,' was never born, had never 
died — that is, indeed, that he was not a human being. 
Had he been a man, who, in any era of time, and in 
any country of the world, had lived and died, as all 
men live and die, the whole argument of the apostle 
to prove the superior dignity of Christ in being a 
priest after the order of Melchisedec,- and not after 
the order of Aaron, would be absolutely idiotcy and 
mere jargon, unpregnant of a meaning. 

But that he was not a man, in no sense a man, 
and had no substantive existence, is the essential onus 
of the whole conundrum : ' He of whom these things 
are spoken,' says the apostle, ■ pertaineth to a tribe of 
which NO MAN gave attendance at the altar (Heb. vii. 
13.) :' and in the 8th, ' Here men that die (mortal men) 
receive tithes ; but there he, of whom it is witnessed 
that he liveth ' — that is, assuredly, that he was not a 
mortal man, but that he was a being still existing. 
Again, in the 28th verse : ' The law maketh men high 
priests which have infirmity :' and, in the 23rd : 
'And they truly were many priests, because they 
were not suffered to continue by reason of death ; but 
this (man), because he continueth, ever hath an un- 
changeable priesthood. ; In the original text, the word 
for man nowhere occurs in connection with the name 
Melchisedec; he is nowhere called a man. Every 
term, every idea, every epithet, not excepting one, as- 
sociated with the part he bears in sacred writ, is purely 
astronomical. 

We are commanded to consider that, according to 
the derivative sense of our English word, to put the 
Stars together — Qeupetre 6e T<7\r\ia drog, and see, be- 
hold ; not think merely, but look up upon the vaulty 
bosom of the night, and see how great this : not this 
man, but this heavenly being, this constellation was, 



MELCHISEDEC. 231 

unto whom even the Patriarch Abraham gave the 
tenths — the decimals, the decades of the highest tops, 
the astronomical divisions. And to what sense can 
the x ara rr l v tcl%lv, according to the order of Melchi- 
sedec, be interpreted, but according to the astronomi- 
cal arrangement, or disposition of the heavenly bodies, 
by him i who telleth the number of the Stars, and 
calleth them all by their names V Psalm 147. And 
wherefore is it, that the secondary personage, in being 
made a priest, or holy one, or set in the heavens after 
the oder or astronomical arrangement of Melchisedec, 
derives his assurance of his permanency in that high 
office, inasmuch as not without an oath is he made 
priest — %oiptg opno\ioaiaq — that is, not without an ap- 
peal to Hell — a consultation and consent of that 
bottomless pit of infinite space, out of whose domin- 
ion the orbit and kingdom of the new created Star 
must necessarily be apportioned ? And what sense 
shall we find for those sublime images, ' the day of 
thy power:' ' the dew of thy birth is of the womb of 
the morning :' if we are to withold our conviction from 
the clear and literal astronomical sense, which, in not 
one or two, but in innumerable passages, discovers to 
us, that all the persons of sacred poesy are purely as- 
tronomical figments. Thus the priest after the order 
of Melchisedec is nothing more nor other than a Star 
in the Melchisedekian projection of the planetary sys- 
tem ; and you have the literal and unsophisticated 
avowal of the sacred text, as to who, and which, that 
particular Star was, in Rev. xxii. 16. 'I Jesus, am 
the bright and morning Star' — the Star which has its 
birth, or period of rising, just as the dews of the 
morning begin to fall, — which gives us a rational 
meaning, where none other such can be conceived, of 
those words : ' The dew of thy birth is of the womb 
of the morning.' 



232 ASTEONOMICG-THEOLOGICAL LECTUKES. 

Fairest of Stars, last in the train of night, 

If better thou belong not to the dawn, 

Sure pledge of day that crown'st the smiling mora 

With the bright circlet.' 

As the same Jesus is expressly called by St. 
Peter, the Day Stae. 2 Peter i. 19. 

While Melchisedec himself, from all the analogies 
of his mystical character, presents us with no closer 
an approximation to identity than to the Pole Star, 
to whose astronomical affinities and relations, all the 
forms of speech occurring in Scripture with respect to 
Melchisedec will be found most scientifically applica- 
ble ; every genius of a Star being a King, gives us 
his title Moloka ; and the whole heavens turning round 
on him, as on their pivot, gives us his name of Ze- 
dek, or the Just One, who regulates, or rectifies the 
order of the whole ; and his character of Hierophant, 
or priest, as showing the law of heaven to all celestial 
hosts. 

But as the personified genius of the planet, or con- 
stellation, a mere abstraction of the mind, cannot be 
supposed to have held dialogues, and transacted busi- 
ness with any real and corporeal beings, it will follow 
that, if Melchisedec were not a real personage, who 
blessed Abraham, neither could Abraham have been 
a real personage, who received the blessing ; nor could 
there have been any reality in the transaction repre- 
sented to have happened between them. Noe was 
theee ! The discovery may startle us at first, and 
break in upon the stagnation of our established modes 
of thinking, or rather of contriving not to think. But 
a little inquiry and research will satisfy us that Abra- 
ham, as well as Melchisedec, was ' without father, with- 
out mother, without descent' — that is, that he is a 
fictitious personage altogether ; that he never had any 
real existence, but is the personified genius of a 



MELCHISEDEC. 233 

planet ; and all the actions and circumstances of his 
allegorical life, a mere poetical paraphrase of physical 
phenomena. ' Such is the case with a crowd of pre- 
tended kings, princes, and patriarchs of the ancient 
traditions of the east. From the moment that by the 
natural metaphor of their languages they began to 
personify the celestial bodies ;' astronomy became re- 
ligion ; the forms and figures of speech, intended only 
for illustration, were taken as literalities. The names 
given to particular stars, were taken for names of real per- 
sonages ; and the vanity and ignorance of whole nations 
led them to claim relationship and family affinity to 
the exalted abstractions. 

Thus the name which the Chaldean astronomers 
had given to the planet Saturn, in signification of its 
distinctive phenomena in the planetary system, as the 
most remote, most elevated, and most devious, of all 
the then known planetary bodies, Father of Eleva- 
tion, Ab-eam, presented at once the name of Abram : 
and Abram, both in the Arabic and in the Hebrew 
(which is but a dialect of the Arabic) is none other 
than the name of the planet Saturn. 

This same planet Saturn, in the language of the 
Phoenicians, a people much more ancient than the 
Hebrews, was called Israel* So that Abram is the 
Arabic, and Israel the Phoenician name of the planet 
Saturn. From the never-failing "course, and punc- 
tual returns of the seasons of this remotest of the pla- 
netary bodies, his physical character became the most 
expressive emblem of moral fidelity, and liis name of 
Abram, Father of Elevation, acquired the epithet of 
Father of the Faithful. 

* Kpovog Toivvv, ov 01 (froiVLKeg IcparjX irpoaayev evuot 
TrpooayopevovoL. Saturaus igitur Phcenices Israelem nominant 
— Sanchon: apud Eusb : itaredit Franciscus Yigerus Rothomgen- 
sis, p. 40. 



234 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

The planet Saturn, measuring time by the longest 
career, and the slowest motion of all the planets, was 
personified as the genius of Time. The Arabians and 
Persians called him Esrael, or Angel of Death, and 
represented him with a scythe in his hand, in signifi- 
cation that it is he who mows down all creatures ; 
that he devours his own children, and puts to death 
all that he gives life to. 

All idolatrous nations have had a Saturn of their 
own ; and of all their Saturns, the main and charac- 
teristic notions are precisely the same ; and so little 
are we removed from the practices and conceits of idol- 
atrous nations, that we have our Saturn too ; and set 
him even to this day in the very temples and sanctuaries 
of the Star of our God, Irjavg, — where we shall see 
the old enemy carved in gold, with the very charac- 
teristic scythe in his hand, sitting upon the clock, and 
pointing to its dial plate, in indication of his eternal 
power and Godhead, and that it is he alone who shall 
reign for ever and ever. And that that indication 
may not possibly be mistaken, a legend is often sub- 
scribed to convey the same sense, as if the demon 
spoke to us from his oracle : — ' Go about your busi- 
ness!' 'Memento Mori: ' Remember to die.' 
' Verbum Domini manet in eternum ;' 4 The word 
of the Lord remaineth for ever.' ' Fugiunt at impu- 
tantur /' ' They fly, but are imputed.' 

The Hebrews invariably associate their notions of 
great length of time, of perpetuity of succession, and 
infinite generations, with their hieroglyph for Time, 
their patriarch or old father Abraham, whose * seed is 
as the sand on the sea shore.' Their metaphor for 
eternal duration is, * Abraham and his seed for ever.' 

Would the Egyptian monks put into the mouth 
of their hero a metaphor to express an infinitely remote 
antiquity, an eternity, a parte post, it is, ' Before 



MELCHISEDEC. 235 

Abraham was' — that is, before time was ; for an eter- 
nity, a parte ante, it is, when time shall be no 
more — that is, when Abraham shall be no more. So 
the boast of the speakers in the New Testament, « We 
have Abraham to our father,' was nothing more than 
a figurative form of pretending an infinitely remote 
antiquity. The hieroglyphical office of Abraham, and 
of the planet Saturn, to mark and measure time, is 
precisely the same : ' Your father Abraham rejoiced 
to see my day, and he saw it and was glad.' 

While this distinction of regulating Time is so 
peculiarly and exclusively challenged as the sole pre- 
rogative of Father Abraham — that is, pre-eminently 
the Father, — that the Just One, or Tsedec of the 
New Testament tells his satellites, * It is not for you 
to know the times and seasons which the father hath 
put in his own power.' Acts, i. 7. 'Nay, more,' he 
adds, ' of that day and that hour knoweth no man ; 
no, not the angels which are in heaven. Neither the 
Son, but the Father.' Mark, xiii. 32. None but Old 
Father Abraham having anything to do with Time. 

The relative astronomical distances of Abraham 
in the Evangelical Ephemeris, and of the planet Saturn 
in the solar system, are also precisely the same. The 
rich man tormented in that flame, lifteth up his eyes 
and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bo- 
som ; which is just as the planet Saturn is seen, with 
his cold shivering and beggarly satellites in relation to 
the central fire, — the Sun, our God, * for our God is 
a consuming fire.' Heb. xii. 29. 

The notion of an historical and personal existence 
of these astronomical figments is not merely discoun- 
tenanced, but explicitly opposed and denied, by the 
only sense that can possibly be found for the whole 
argument of the Christ of the New Testament against 
the Jews. ' Abraham is dead, and the prophets are 



236 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

dead,' had been the Jewish argument : and dead 
enough, in God's name, they must have been, had they 
been persons who had had a real existence, so many hun- 
dred years before. But the argument of Christ was, 
that they were not dead, but beings still in existence, 
— in that God had said, ' I am the God of Abraham, 
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, — and God 
is not the God of the dead, but of the living.' 
Therefore (Matthew xxii. 32,) certainly they were not 
men, as dead they must have been, had they been so, 
or had ever lived in any sense of a life- subject to 
death. 

The language which runs through both the Old 
and the New Testament, in relation to these personi- 
fications, presents a most manifest impropriety and 
a glaring absurdity, if we take them to be mortal men, 
and are to suppose that the eternal God should derive 
to himself titles and honors from sinful flesh and blood. 
But these titles fall into keeping: they harmonize 
with the laws of the drama, and are indeed magnifi- 
cent hyperboles in the proper oriental style, when we 
understand the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of 
Jacob, as a periphrasis for the God of heaven, tl\e 
God of the bright squadrons of the twinkling night. 

" Ten thousand marshalled stars, a silver zone, 
Effuse their blended radiance round his throne." 

As no Christian doubts, or can doubt, that by that 
sublime title, the Lord of Hosts, the Yeheeva Shabba 
yut, is meant pre-eminently the Lord of the Hosts of 
Heaven ; and certainly n#mere captain or general of 
armies marching to battle, connected as that title is 
with the name of Jacob and of Israel, as exegetical or 
explanatory of it, as the Lord of Hosts, the God of 
Israel, the Lord of Hosts, the God of Jacob : there 
can be no doubt that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, are 



MELCHISEDEC. 237 

to be understood as the names of planets, the most 
distinguished members of the Hosts of Heaven. And 
Saturn, the most remote of all the planets, whose 
Arabic name is Ab-ram, whose Phoenician name is 
Israel, and whose Chaldaic name is Remphan, is with 
striking propriety specified under that name, where 
the title is rhetorically abbreviated, 'The God of Israel,' 
being nothing else but a regular sycopation of the 
title, the God of the planet Saturn — that is, the eternal 
God, the God whose power reaches over all time. 
Sol, the Sun, the Eternal One, whose influence extends 
even to the planet Saturn, as the utmost measure 
of the minds power to form a conception of duration 
and of distance. So the title of Fathek, and the 
Father, and God the Father of Heaven, and our 
Heavenly Father, were but abbreviations of the name 
Abraham. And it was Abraham, and Abraham only, 
as the genius of their tutelar planet Saturn, whom 
the Jews were taught to address in that self- 
condemning prayer to the unforgiving, « Our Father, 
which art in Heaven.' And thus, jn that sublime 
Chaldean melo-drama, the Book of Job, the ' God who 
is in the height of heaven, makes it the distinguishing 
challenge of his pre-eminence. ' Canst thou bind the 
sweet influences of the Pleiades, or loose the bands of 
Orion? Canst thou bring forth Mazaroth in this 
season ? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons ? 
Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the 
earth, when the morning stars sang together, and all 
the sons of God shouted for joy. 

Here, the very astronomical names of the constella- 
tions and stars which obtain in use, to this day, are 
substituted in the place of those Hebrew names for 
the same, or different constellations and stars, which 
our ignorance has mistaken for real personages. 

We have Mazzaroth, the twelve signs of the Zodiac, 



238 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

for the twelve Patriarchs; and Arcturus, that 
beautiful Star of the first magnitude in the knee of 
Bootes or Adam, Arcturus and his sons, instead of 
Israel and his sons. The difference of the one set of 
names from the other being all the difference. Those 
were the Chaldean names, these were Hebrew. But 
the essence and meaning of both are purely astro- 
nomical, and all their singings and shoutings, their 
wanderings and returnings, their sufferings and victo- 
ries, and all other adventures and actions ascribed to 
them, are merely a metaphorical history of the phe- 
nomena of the visible heavens. 

So early as 100 years before the vulgar era, 
Alexander Polyhistor assures us that the ancient 
annals of the Babylonians are filled with allegories, 
descriptive of physical phenomena. His words are : 
'But this they say allegorically, as discoursing of 
natural phenomena :' which is nothing more than 
St, Paul has owned of the whole history of Abraham 
and his sons : 'which things are an allegory.' 

It is certain that no record or vestige whatever 
of such beings as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or of 
a people who believed, or pretended to be descended 
from them, can be traced higher than the period of 
the emergency of this people from their Babylonish 
captivity : from which captivity, or rather from their 
native origination, they derived that allegorical and 
strongly figurative idiom of language which has caused 
astronomical terms to be taken for historical ones. 

The very name itself of Children of Israel, was 
derived to them from the Phoenicians, on the showing 
of their own historian Josephus: Israel being the 
Phoenician name of the planet Saturn, of the same 
signification as the Chaldean word Abraham, and 
identically synonymous with the Star of their God, 
Memphan. 



XIV, THE LORD: 

O Kvptog OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
PART I. 



And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith. And the 
Lord said, If ye liad faith as a grain of mustard-seed, ye might 
say to this sycamore-tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be 
thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.'' — Luke, xvii. 5,6. 



The greatest error ever committed in the world 
was the suffering the sacred scriptures to come into 
the hands of the common people. The greatest 
crime ever committed by man against the peace and 
happiness of society, as well as against the Holy 
Majesty of Heaven, was the act of translating these 
sacred records into the vulgar tongues of the different 
nations of Christendom, and thereby putting barbarian 
vanity and savage fanaticism into a mad conceit that 
they could judge as well of the nature of the 'deep 
things of God,' as his own holy priests, who, by his 
express appointment, were to be the 'ministers of Christ, 
and stewards of the mysteries of God:' from whose 
oral instructions alone, the people were to receive the 
measure of divine truth apportioned to their capacity, 
and of whom God hath said, 'The priests' lips shall 



240 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

keep knowledge: the people shall hear the word of 
the Lord at their mouth, and by their word shall 
every controversy and every stroke be tried.' 

But how lay-people, the unlearned and unskilled 
in sacred science, were like to get a chance of coming 
any nearer the sense of the original, by means of the 
vulgar translation, may be inferred, from the confessed 
ignorance and infinite discrepancies, and differences 
of understanding which obtain, even among the most 
learned of protestant divines and scholars, and the 
universally-admitted defects and errors' of that trans- 
lation. 

'It amazes me,' says the great critic and most 
learned protestant theologue, Dr. Markland, in his 
letter to the learned Bowyer, * It amazes me, when I 
consider what strange oversights have been made in 
the New Testament, by men of the greatest learning 
and sagacity, in a book that has been read more than 
any book in the world ! What can be the reason of 
it ? They would not have done so in any other author. 
Keverence, perhaps, has got the better of common 
sense. I could send you instances that would aston- 
ish you.' 

And if learned men have made such monstrous 
blunders, and fallen into such egregious mistakes — as 
they never would have fallen into in the understanding 
of any other book, — what must we think would be 
likely to be the misconceptions and misapprehensions 
of the unlearned and unstable, but that they should 
wrest the scriptures, as indeed they do, to their own 
destruction. 

Or where need we seek farther for the reason of 
all this, than that reason which the scriptures them- 
selves assign — that, 'Even to this day, when the 
scriptures are read, the veil is upon their hearts. 
According as. it is written, God hath given them the 



THE LOED. 241 

spirit of slumber ; eyes that they should not see, and 
ears that they should not hear, unto this day.' 

And is it not so, sirs, that 'the spirit of slumber,' 
a lazy, drunken, drowsiness of mind, and a palsy of 
the very faculty of curiosity and inquiry, seize the 
rational nature of man, the moment he hears or reads 
the violated text of God's word ? 

Nor is it unintelligent and exceedingly weak- 
minded men who are alone visited by this palsy of 
the mental faculties, upon any approach to the mys- 
teries of our most holy faith. The shrewdest, the 
quickest, the cleverest, in every other respect — men 
who, in the reading of an ordinary lease or title-deed,, 
or will, that might affect their claim to temporal pro- 
perty, would not let a word, nor a syllable, nor a dot, 
nor a comma, escape their criticism ; who would sift 
and resift, weigh and weigh again, every possible 
sense that every noun, pronoun, verb, participle, ad- 
verb, conjunction, preposition, or interjection of such 
a document would bear, — will read their Bibles with 
their eyes shut ; and any meaning will do for that, 
that any man may put on't, so that they be but suffi- 
ciently sure that he'll not say anything to shake their 
faith, or put 'em to the mortification of discovering 
that the scriptures, which are able to make them wise 
unto salvation, through faith, which is in Jesus Christ, 
have made no conjurors of 'em, for all that. 

What man, upon reading the words — 'And the 
apostles said unto the Lord, and the Lord said unto 
the apostles,' would in any other respect have been so 
measurelessly stupid, and so drivellingly idiotish, as 
to let such words pass in at one ear and out of the 
other, without stopping them by the way to certify 
what weight of metal they carry with them, and whence 
they bought, or brought, or found, or stole it ? Who 

11 



242 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

would not ask — Who is this O Kvpcog; the Lord ? And 
these 01 Attooto^oi, the apostles. 

What greater proof, then, can be imagined, that 
God indeed hath visited the Christian community 
with ' the spirit of slumber,' than the fact that, of the 
millions to whom the words l the Lord ' and ' the Apos- 
tles,' as rendered into their own tongue, are as fami- 
liar as their teeth, — not one in a million hath any 
more idea of what those words really mean, than he 
has of the Abracadabra, or Shem Hemephoresh, or 
magical incantations. Why, to be sure, do they not 
mean our blessed Savior, Jesus of Nazareth, and 
his twelve disciples, Andrew, Thomas, Peter, James, 
"John, and the rest of them ? No, they do not ! The 
Tower of Babel, and the twelve stones that Joshua 
threw into the River Jordan, would be a better guess 
at it. 

Well, then, if men may be so monstrously de- 
ceived as thus, it may be asked, how can moral cer- 
tainty, or any knowledge of the past, be ensured to 
man ? how can it be possible to arrive at any truth 
whatever ? 

Why thus it may be — by setting out in the pur- 
suit of it in a different direction, and on other princi- 
ples than those on which you have hitherto acted ; 
even by that patience to hear arguments, the like of 
which you had never heard before ; that diligence to 
inquire, and that candor to compare the merits of 
what may be new and strange to you, which are in- 
cluded in that sacred precept — 'Prove all things; 
hold fast that which is good.' But never think of 
holding fast till you have proved. 

And on this principle of proving, as you would 
be ashamed not to apply it in the ordinary business 
of life, a sensible man would pause first, and insist on 
receiving a perfect satisfaction as to what such words 



THE LORD. 243 

as the Lord and the Apostles respectively mean, and 
from what sources and authorities their meaning is 
derived ; and how it has come to pass, that in these 
mystical and double meaning books, called spells or 
charms of God, or God's spells, these technical terms, 
the Lord and the Apostles, are played off upon us 
with such a flinging familiarity, as if it were a thing 
to be taken for granted that every body must know 
who Lords and Apostles were. 

And of this familiarity in the use of these 
terms, without any farther exposition of them, the re- 
sulting proof is, as that proof would be received in a 
court of justice with respect to the authenticity of any 
other writings in the world, that these writings could 
not possibly have been written before the notion of 
the Lord and the Apostles was fully made up and uni- 
versally established in the world. 

Neither, then, could this gospel according to St. 
Luke — that is, not by St. Luke, but according to St. 
Luke, as God only knows who he was, — have been 
written as the basis of Christianity, inasmuch as there 
is not a single sentence in it but what supposes the 
whole mysterious system already full established, and' 
entirely prevalent, before this gospel was written, even 
to such an universality as that its most isoteric and 
peculiar terms and phrases might be used without any 
apprehension on the part of the writer that his readers 
would want to know to whom they referred. 

Assume any terms of art, to be used with great 
familiarity in any treatise whatever, and you have, in 
the familiar use of those terms, a chronological demon- 
stration, that that treatise could not have been writ- 
ten before the general understanding of mankind was 
fully possessed of the significancy of those terms, and 
the art to which they belonged sufficiently apprehen- 
ded and understood. 



244 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

So the style of the blessed gospels throughout, in 
every term which they contain, involves the proof 
and demonstation that they were not, and absolutely 
could not have been written, till long, very long, many 
hundred, and I believe in my heart thousands of 
years after the general and universal prevalence of the 
notions which they detail. 

They are not the rule of what the faith should 
be, but exhibitions only of what it was : Christianity 
is not founded upon them, but they are founded upon 
Christianity : they derive their authority from the 
church, and not the church from them. 

Any other records whatever, which the church had 
adopted, would have been as sacred and as holy as 
these holy writings by virtue of that adoption. And 
I'll answer for it, that good Christian people would 
have found them quite as comfortable to their souls, 
and as answerable to the spiritual cravings of the in- 
ner man. For, blessed be God! the spiritual ap- 
petite of our immortal souls was never very delicate 
in its choice of what it fed on. 

The term ' the Lord,' even in the plain English 
ear, (if that ear hold any communication with a mind 
within) in its most ordinary acceptation, leading the 
idea, as it does, to its great reference to the Lord 
God — the Jehovah God of the Old Testament, — must 
assure us that it could not have appertained to, nor 
be meant to designate any human being whatever. 

But the term apostles is a Greek word adopted or 
naturalized, without translation, into our English lan- 
guage ; in which, unless we refer it [the word] to its 
derivative signiticancy in the language from which it 
has been borrowed, it has absolutely no meaning at 
all. The only clue afforded to the mere English rea- 
der is, that there is certainly some very particular and 
essential relation between the Lord and the Apostles ; 



THE LORD. 245 

they are co-relative and inseparable notions. And 
the company always consists of thirteen : there is one 
Lord — and, never be it forgotten, his name One : but 
there are always twelve apostles, neither more nor 
fewer; but so necessarily and essentially twelve, that 
when one (as good as any of the rest of 'em) hanged 
himself, another was immediately put into his place 
to keep up the exact number twelve. 

The words of the original Greek text are — Kai 
enrov 01 AnooroXoi to) KvpiG), sine de Kvpiog. Why, 
then, was not the term o Kvpiog naturalized into the 
Curios, as well as the 01 Knoaroyoi into the apostles f 
It would have sounded as well in the brute ear of un- 
inquisitive credulity. 

But the meaning of the word o Kvpiog, which we 
have translated the Lord, demands, and would de- 
mand, from any man who sincerely loved and sought 
the truth, the severest sifting and the most unflinch- 
ing and uncompromising criticism of which his mind 
was capable. If it were possible that any man on 
earth could better know what that word meant, whence 
it was derived, and to what it tended, he would bar- 
gain with Omnipotence to forfeit his salvation. ' Were 
it in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the 
waters under the earth,' thence would he drag it forth, 
nor live nor die till he had known the Lord ; nor 
would he suffer that word to be uttered in his ear, 
by one of woman born who knew the Lord better than 
himself. O Kvpiog, in our Greek Testament, is an ad- 
jective ungrammatically used as a substantive : o Kvpiog 
should signify of or pertaining to that which is 
o Kvpog. And Kvpog we shall find to be a God who 
was worshipped under that name by the ancient Per- 
sians. And that God, so worshipped under that name, 
Kvpog, which is the theme and root of the Greek 



246 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

name o Kvpiog, which our translators have rendered 
the Lord, was the Sun. 

'For the Persians,' says Plutarch, in his Artaxerxes, 
' calls the Sun Kfpoc. Kvpov yap KaXeiv Hepaag rov 
HXiov. And Ctesias, the ancient historian of Persia, 
informs us that Cyrus, the Mede, who is expressly 
designated by Jehovah, in the 45th of Isaiah, by the 
titles given to Christ in the New Testament, receiv- 
ed that name of Kvpiog, {Cyrus) as derived from the 
name of the Sun. 

Kac rcderat to ovo\ia avro ano to H/Uo>. 

' Thus saith the Lord to his annointed, to Cyrus, 
whose right hand I have holden to subdue nations 
before him :' which is but a repetition of the similar 
idea of the 110th Psalm. 

' Yahouh said unto Adonis,' which our translation 
renders, ' the Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou on my 
right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.' 
Though we sometimes find this infinitely important 
word Kvpog written Kvptg ; but still, with reference 
to the Sun, the Adonis of the East, as Hesychius, the 
great critic of the third century, expressly states Kvpcg , 
o Adovig — that is, Kvpcg is Adonis, as that Adonis 
was the Sun, the name Adonis being compounded of 
the two words Ad and On, being the title of the Su- 
preme Being, the irpcjrog ro)v rrpG)TG)v, first of the first, 
or the Most High, and ON, the Egyptian name of the 
Sun. 

Among the Eastern nations, Ad was a peculiar 
title, always signifying and referring to the Sun, as being 
pre-eminently the One, or the Alone ; and this is the 
derivative sense of that word Holy, and of those 
phrases Holiness to the Lord, the pib of the Hebrew, 
the Ayiog of the Greek, the Sanctus of the Sabines, 
and ultimately the Solus or Sol of the Latins. All 



THE LORD. 247 

these words signify the Oneness or Unity of the 
Godhead. 

Hence the Apollo, literally signifying the one, apart 
and separated from the many. 

The Syrian, Chaldean, and Egyptian nations, for 
the greater reverence, doubled the word Ad, which 
was their way of forming the superlative degree, and 
made Adad — the One, the One. And you find that 
very name ascribed by the Moses of the Old Testa- 
ment, and the Christ of the New, to the Supreme Je- 
hovah, ' Hear, O Israel, Yahouh, our Alehim, is 
Yahouh Achad.' 

But the Greeks and Romans, not content with 
doubling the word that expressed the One, from still 
greater reverence, tripled it, and sung to the tune — 
the One, the One, the One, — Holy, Holy, Holy, 
is the Lord; while by the three ones they still 
meant only the One One : and thus made a Trinity in 
Unity, and a Unity in Trinity, without intending it : 
both Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, never having 
meant more than one God, and one Lord, and that 
Lord God was the Sun. 

Thoth or Theuth, the Egyptian name for the Sun, 
was the root of the Greek word Oeoc — God. 

And Kvpo$, or Cyrus, the Persic name for the 
Sun, was the root of the Greek word Kvptog — the 
Lord. 

And the God Apollo was actually worshipped in 
his Holy Temple at Phocis, under that epithet 
Kvppaiog — Apollo, (Bryant, Vol. I. p. 101) — the Lord 
of Glory. 

Nor is the meaning even of our English words the 
Lord, as the translation of the Greek o Kvptoc, so en- 
tirely disguised, but that a man who would attend to 
the meaning of words might find out what the deity 
is that is worshipped under the name of the Lord, 



248 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

even in the Collects of our own Common Prayer Book ; 
as in that of St. John the Evangelist — ' Merciful 
Lord, we beseech thee to cast thy bright beams of 
light, upon thy church, that it — being enlightened by 
the doctrine of thy blessed Apostle and Evangelist, 
St. John, — may so walk in the light of thy 
truth, that it may at length attain to the light of 
everlasting life, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen, 
— that is, our Lord Jupiter Ammon. 

That mystically -muttered word AuMON, through 
all the variety of intonations and cadences that can 
possibly be given to it, Ah-men, Aumen, Amen, 
Omen, never having meant any thing else than Jupi- 
ter Ammon, the Egyptian name for the Sun, is 
retained at this day, at the end of every creed, of 
every prayer, of every devotional form whatever; to 
intimate that by whatever other names the Lord may 
be addressed, they are all included and summed up 
in the name Amon — that is, the Sun, even 'the 
Father of Lights,' with whom is no variableness nor 
shadow of turning ; Jesus Christ, the same yester- 
day, to-day, and forever ; whose sacred emblem you 
see here on our holy altar, sketched from an entabla- 
ture found in the ruins of J¥aki-JRustan, near the 
temple of the God Mithra, in Persia — the Sun with 
wings, and the uplifted Serpent — -that mystic hiero- 
glyph, which spake to the worshippers of the Sun 
a thousand years before our Christian era, none other 
than the purport of our sacred scriptures, both of the 
Old and New Covenant. Ve zercheh lekem yerai 
'shemi, Chemosh Tzedequeh ve Merjpa bekenpihog. 
' Unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of Right- 
eousness arise, with healing in his wings.' Malachi 4. 

Kai nadog- Mdyarjg vxjjoyae rov ocpiv ev r?y epT/ftw, ojrcjg 
v\pG)(f>vaL dei rov viov to) A.v$pG)-G). 

' And as Moses lifted up the Serpent in the wil- 



THE LORD. 249 

derness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.' 
John iii. 14. 

Under which you read the appropriate legend, 
which it would have been impious to translate from 
the ancient Orphic hymns: 

TlrvTO(pv7]g yeverup iravrcov TToXvcovvfie Aaifiov. 
" Of all natures, parent of all things, demon of many names." 

Which Pope has versified into that truly Catholic 
stanza : 

" Father of all, in every age, 
In every clime adored ; 
By saint, by savage, and by sage, 
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord." 

And understanding now who the Lord is, the un- 
known quantity is found, and the question is solved. 

You can be no longer at a loss to tell why there 
should be just twelve apostles, through whom the 
great physician of our souls should diffuse his healing 
influences through the world ; and that each of their 
mystical characters should answer, as they do with an 
astonishing minuteness, to the respective physical 
phenomena of the twelve months of the year, and the 
twelve signs of the Zodiac. 

Now it is of infinite importance to have it deeply 
impressed on our minds, that of all religious customs 
and usages that have ever obtained among men (it 
would be a sarcasm to say rational men) none besides 
was ever so universal, so invariable, as that of priests 
assuming to themselves the characters, taking the 
names and titles, and speaking and acting as in the 
person of the God whose priests they affected to be. 
A priest of Jupiter would be content with nothing 
short of the honor of being addressed as Jupiter 
himself. 

11* 



250 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

Chreses, the priest of Apollo, hesitates not to 
challenge from the kings of Greece the reverence due 
to Apollo. Afrfievoi Atoc v iov ear] fioXov ArroXXuva ra 
6' anoiva deyeotie. And take the gifts in reverence of 
the Son of God, the far-shooting Apollo. 

1 1 am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have none 
other Gods but me,' was a bit of impudence that the 
modesty of a priest would never boggle at, an' let the 
gulled people stare. 

One would say, * I am the Lord's :' and another 
would subscribe himself by the name of the Mighty 
God of Jacob ; till at last, Lords were so cheap, and 
there were such a many ■ mighty Gods of Jacob,' that 

the poet said No ; I'll not tell you what the poet 

said. But with this understanding, we have light 
enough in our hands to advance upon the last argu- 
ment of our text — ' The apostles said unto the Lord, 
increase our faith.' 

Now, whatever that principle of faith was, it seems 
that the apostolic stock of it ran very low ; they had 
not so much as the size of a grain of mustard-seed 
among the twelve of 'em. The great question is, — 
what was or is the principle of faith ? It was evi- 
dently the principle necessary to the right understand- 
ing of everything said, or done, or enjoined, through- 
out the whole system of divine revelation. 

' For without faith it is impossible to please God,' 
which is the way the priests quote the text (Hebrews, 
xi 6). Though, if a man brews for himself, he'll see 
not a word in the text itself about pleasing God. It 
is only 'without faith it is impossible to please.' 
Xo)ptg 6e moreoyg advvarov evapearrjaac — that is, it is 
impossible to please your teachers, spiritual pastors, 
and masters ; and to order yourself lowly and rever- 
ently to all your betters. 

For among all the forms and follies of pagan piety 



THE LOED. 251 

or impiety, I defy imagination to conceive that the 
human mind ever sunk, or could sink, into a depth of 
folly and madness second to that of imagining that 
the Almighty should want a man to believe something 
to be true, which, in the natural exercise of his ra- 
tional faculties, he could not help suspecting to be no 
better than a lie. 

But all the mistake, so far as it has not been wil- 
ful, has originated in the confusion caused in the re- 
semblance of the word faith to that faithfulness by 
which, in ordinary parlance, we mean integrity and 
truth, and should call a man faithless who broke his 
promises, and deceived us, and went from his engage- 
ments with us. 

But no true words ever used by man were ever 
of more diametrically opposite and contradictory signi- 
fication. Faith in the gospel, so far from meaning 
taking it to be literally true, means, taking it as it 
was intended to be taken ; and, believing it, means 
understanding it. So that a true faith is a moun- 
tain-removing and sycamore-transplanting princi- 
ple. 

As when you know that an allegory is only the 
vehicle of some great moral truth, you don't stand 
higgling with its dead letter, the mere shells and 
husks on which the swine do feed, as contra-distin- 
guished from that spiritual sense, that bread of life, 
which is the children's food ; of which our blessed Sa- 
vior so emphatically speaks — ' It is not meet to take 
that which is holy and give it to the dogs.' But dogs 
and swine in understanding are they who take the 
gospel to be literally true, and 'stumble at the word, 
being disobedient whereunto also they were ap- 
pointed.' 

Therefore, said Christ our Lord to his disciples — 
4 Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the 



252 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

kingdom of heaven ; but, unto them that are without, 
all these things are done in parables, that seeing they 
may see and not perceive, and hearing they may hear 
and not understand.' ' Neither,' said he, ' cast ye 
your pearls before swine, lest they turn again and rend 
you.' As, in all ages of the world, the swinish mul- 
titude — gospel-crammed fools, that feed upon the 
letter and rest only in the first sense of things, — do 
gnash their teeth, and are ready to turn and rend the 
man whom they behold ' full of the Holy Ghost and 
of faith,' and, from that fulness of the Holy Ghost 
and faith, able to show them that * There are more 
things in heaven and earth than have been dreamed of 
in their philosophy.' 

'For God hath made us' — what the ministers, 
which better please the multitude, are not, — ' God 
hath made us able ministers of the New Testament ; 
not of the letter, but of the spirit ; for the letter kill- 
eth,' said the holy apostle : — that is, there is not a 
word of truth in the letter of the New Testament : it 
was never intended to pass for true, and none but 
the swine who feed on husks would have ever taken 
it for truth. ' But the spirit giveth life ; thus faith, 
which is an entirely technical term, and peculiar to 
the language of theology, is theologically defined as 
' a right understanding in all things ;' it is to under- 
stand a ILapoifua, 'and the interpretation thereof; 
the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.' 

Or, as the apostle to the Hebrews laboriously de- 
fines it, with a precision which one might have thought 
it impossible to misunderstand, it is eXmfypevav 
vuooraoiq Ov fiXenofievcjv eXeyxog — that is, the imagi- 
nation of things which have no reality : the seeing of 
things which nobody ever saw! 

And then follows the application of the realizing 
view of divine things to all the allegories of the Old 



THE LOED. 253 

Testament, which the ignorant have so absurdly taken 
for real histories. It is by faith that we understand 
how the world was made. And how Abel, ' being 
dead, yet speaketh.' As, in God's name, what should 
hinder a dead man from speaking, — by faith f ' By 
faith the walls of Jericho fell down,' as by faith, if 
occasion had called for it, they'd have got up again. 'By 
faith, the children of Israel went through the Red Sea 
as on dry land,' as any other children in the world 
might have done, — by faith. As said our Saviour, 
Christ, 'If ye had faith as a grain of mustard-seed, 
ye might say to this sycamore-tree, Be thou plucked 
up by the roots, and be thou planted in the sea, and 
it should obey you;' or, as he saith in farther exposi- 
tion of this saying, ' If thou canst believe, all things 
are possible to him that belie veth.' There's no diffi- 
culty then in the matter : — that is, make believe, 
imagine, fancy that it was all so : work up your hu- 
mor to the conceit of the thing, and then look at the 
sycamore-tree, and the mountains, and then 

" See lofty Lebanon his head advance, 
See nodding forests on the mountain dance ; 
The Saviour comes, by ancient bards foretold ; 
Hear him, ye deaf — and all ye blind, behold !" 

Then shall triumphant faith drive out rebellious 
reason ; then ' all things are yours, and you are 
Christ's, and Christ is God's.' (1 Corinth, iii. 23.) 
Then issue your command, and Omnipotence shall 
obey you: then, 'whosoever shall say unto this 
mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the 
sea ; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall be- 
lieve that those things which he saith shall come to 
pass ; he shall have whatsoever he saith :' as much 
as to say, — The fool shall have the moon to play 



254 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES 

with ; lie shall direct the counsels of infinite wisdom ; 
he shall be regent of the universe : and, in his brain- 
sick vanity, shall imagine the Almighty to obey his 
bidding ! 

Can we wonder that, amid language so evidently 
ironical, so severely sarcastic, as the language ascribed 
to Christ is so continually found to be, we should 
every now and then stumble upon the key to the 
whole mystery — the word to the wise — the word of 
faith, which unlocks the whole mysterious jargon, of 
which it is written, ' None of the wicked shall under- 
stand, but the wise shall understand V 

And what is the word of faith ? Will ye hear it 
from the Apostolic James ? This it is : ' My breth- 
ren have not the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ, the 
Lord of Glory, with respect of persons :' that is, no 
such person (as a person) ever existed. 

Hear it from the Apostolic Paul ! This it is : 
1 There is no respect of persons with God.' God 
knows that no such a person ever existed. 

Hear it in the words set down in the text, and 
spoken in the character itself: 4 Doth this offend you? 
What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up 
where he was before ? It is the spirit that quicken- 
eth, the flesh profiteth nothing : the words that I 
speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.' 
(John 6.) That is, (than which no hint could be 
broader) this whole doctrine of Christ, and of the 
Christian scriptures, is, (as I shall in these lectures 
abundantly convince ye) millions of miles off any such 
a sense as Christian folly, fraud, and falsehood, have 
put on it. 

Hear, then, the voice of wisdom, ye that desire 
to attain unto true counsel. ' For the merchandize 
of it is better than the merchandize of silver, and 



THE LORD. 255 

the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more pre- 
cious than rubies, and all the things thou canst de- 
sire are not to be compared unto her. Her ways 
are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are 
peace.' 

Delenda est Carthago. 



IV. -THE LORD: 

OR wwi OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 



Part II. 



" Then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord" — Hosea, 
vi. 3. 



On this text I addressed a very attentive — and, as 
they were attentive, I hope I may say much instruct- 
ed, — audience on a former evening ; so that we enter 
now on the third stage of the most important, the 
most morally useful, and the most intellectually de- 
lightful study to which the inquisitive faculties of man 
could be directed. 

For surely no language, with respect to this sa- 
cred subject, in its proper acceptation and unerstand- 
ing, could better become a rational man than that 
which authority has put in the mouth of the Patriarch 
Moses : ' I beseech thee, O Lord, show me thy glory ! ' 
or than the still more emphatic exclamation of the 
constellary Jacob, when he wrestled with God, and 
said, ' I will not let thee go, unless thou bless me V 

Our application of the text to our immediate pur- 
pose : ' Then shall we know if we follow on to know 
the Lord,' is to impress on our minds its sacred, yet 
most rational admonition, that knowledge on this sub- 
ject is not to be acquired without study and diligence, 
without a pursuit of the science from stage to stage, 



THE LORD. 257 

as it opens before us a willingness to give up the mis- 
conceptions and prejudices which grew on our less 
extended information, and an ardent desire to enlarge 
our views, to increase our stock of ideas, to extend 
our range of thought, to add to our faith virtue, and 
to our virtue knowledge. And this is none other than 
the method of study propounded to us in the mystic 
allegory by Wisdom herself personified. 4 My son, if 
thou wilt receive my words, and hide my command- 
ment with thee, so that thou incline thine ear unto 
wisdom and apply thine heart unto understanding : yea, 
if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice 
for understanding : if thou seekest her as silver, and 
searchest for her as for hidden treasures : then shalt 
thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the 
knowledge of God.' 

But what pursuit of knowledge, what seeking as 
for hidden treasures, what application of the heart, 
what fidelity to their own rational faculties, can they 
pretend to have exercised, who would never go to hear, 
or never stay to hear anything that might suggest to 
them a new train of thought, or discover to them that 
the first impressions made on their childhood may have 
need to be revised and corrected ? 

Our only difference with the community of our 
Christian brethren is, on the ground that they do not 
observe the admonition I have quoted, and that we 
do : that they do not seek to know the Lord, and to 
discover the real meaning of their own scriptures, but are, 
on the contrary, afraid of nothing so much as that they 
should discover it, and thereby dissipate the delusion 
of fanaticism, and awaken from the drowsy lethargy 
of faith to the business, care, and pains of being 
rational. 

' It is a pain,' says Solomon, ' for a fool to get 
knowledge :' and he looks on any one who would com- 



258 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

mumcate it to him as an enemy. Hence the eternal war 
of the dunces and ignoramuses of society against all 
means and all persons suspected of competence to dis- 
turb the stagnation of popular ignorance : and that 
peculiar injustice, and indeed wickedness of heart, 
which a man would be ashamed of in any other re- 
spect, and which he would most justly and bitterly 
complain of, if shown towards himself, which will set 
such a character, in very malice, to hear only so much 
as may authorize him to say he has heard, and to 
exhibit his misconception of something of which he has 
neither trusted himself to know the beginning nor the 
end, the context nor the bearing, as a representation 
of the knowledge which has indeed been too wonderful 
and excellent for him. 

And so much justice was it that the very proto- 
types and examples of such characters, the scribes and 
pharisees of the gospel, are represented to have siiown 
to its Jesus Christ, when they went to hear him, with 
a view and wish to find matter of offence in what he 
should say. He said something about a Temple, or 
he said that St. Paul's Cathedral was built in three 
days, — or no matter what he said, so he said some- 
thing to authorize them in saying, * Away with such 
a fellow from the earth, for it is not fit that he should 
live.' 

If those who hear me now for the first time are 
minded to be more just than thus, they will patiently 
endure the very succinct recapitulation of what has 
been proved in the previous discourses, and suppose 
that they might have been as entirely convinced by 
the proofs then adduced, as they may be by the far- 
ther information to which now we tend. 

The general object of these discourses is, to ex- 
hibit the true meaning and original sense of all the 
great archetypes and leading ideas of sacred theology ; 



THE LORD. 259 

to set "before yon the etymons, roots, and derivations 
of all its mystical prosopopeia, whether taking their 
rise in Sanscrit, Egyptian, Hebrew, Chaldee, Persic, 
Arabic, Greek, or Latin originals ; to illustrate its 
occult and hidden science ; and to present the real 
and primitive meaning of words, with all the indiffer- 
ence and impartiality with which a dictionary would 
present them. In doing which, it will always be my 
method to give you the literal English, in so close 
and easy a way as to make my hearers imperceptibly 
become scholars as they become critics; to make 
learning delightful, and investigation of sacred theolo- 
gy the vehicle of learning. 

In the first of these discourses, we unveiled the 
mysterious sense and significancy of the word, the 
Lord, as it is predicted of the Lord Jesus Christ, in 
the New Testament, and is presented to the English 
reader as a translation of the Greek word o Kvpcog, 
which Greek word we trace from its Persic original, 
as identical with the name of Cyrus, King of Persia, 
a title which that prince held as derived from the Sun, 
which the Persic word Kvpog signifies, and whose re- 
presentatives on earth the ancient Kings of Persia 
affected to be. 

We before treated on the mysteries of the name 
of the Lord, as it is exclusively meant of the Lord of 
the Old Testament, and presented to the English 
reader the Hebrew word rintfj, absurdly pronounced 
Jehovah, properly pronounced Yahouh, and syno- 
nymous with the very oldest Arabic name of the 
Supreme Deity, Yagouth, who was worshipped under 
the form of a Lion by the wild Arabs of the desert ; 
who was the Lion of the Zodiac, or the Sun in the 
burning heat of the month of July ; who was the Lion 
of the tribe of TW\ (Yahu-dah !) which we call Judah; 
who was the Sing-Avatar, or Man-Lion, of the 



260 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURSES. 

Hindu, represented as bursting from a pillar to destroy 
a blaspheming monarch ; and who, in the sacred text 
of Hosea, xiii. 8, which is the same picture in words, 
is represented as speaking in character — 'Therefore 
will I be unto them as a Lion ; as a Leopard by the 
way will I observe them. I will meet them as a 
Bear which is bereaved of her whelps, and I will rend 
the caul of their heart ; and there will I devour them 
like a Lion.' 

The Egyptians, from whom, or unquestionably 
through whom, both the Jewish and Christian religions 
are derived to us, were the most refined in their 
superstitions of all nations, and veiled the whole of 
their astronomical science under the allegories and 
emblems of religion. Thus the name of the Lion of 
the Zodiacal constellations — in passing through the 
Xecjv of the Greek, the Leo of the Latin, Le Lion of 
the French, and the similarly-formed word in all the 
languages of Asia and of Europe, even to our own 
word Lion, — retains in its etymon the original name 
of God ; El-eon* — i. e., God, the living one, or the 
living God, 

This peculiar character of living, or being the 
eternal and necessarily existing one, is not only found 
as the basis or radical idea of the name of Yahouh, 
of Jupiter and of the Egyptian Lsis, but it is found 
still earlier, as derived to the Egyptians themselves 
from the sacred text of the Bhagavat Pourana, or 
Book of God of the Hindus, as constituting the basis 
of the name of the Supreme God of India, who is 
thus announcing himself to Brahma, whom nobody 
can doubt to be the same as Abraham : — 'Even I 
was : even at first not any other thing : that which 
exists unperceived — supreme: afterwards I am that 
which is : and he who must remain am I :' so literally 

*Bryant's Analysis, Yol. II., p. 18. has suggested this argument. 



THE LOKD. 261 

translated from the Sanscrit by Sir W. Jones. — 
Asiatic Researches, Vol. I. p. 245. 

The happiest rendering of the original word, which 
our English Bibles call the Lord, is that of the French 
version, which is EEternel. The Eternal, present- 
ing this idea of everlasting and necessary existence 
which is the essential basis of the name Yahouh, so 
awkwardly paraphrased in the 'I am that I am,' and 
so entirely lost sight of in our bald English 'the 
Lord.' 

The radical syllable of the word Lion — that is, 
On-eon, or Aon, — was the Amonian title of the Sun, 
and expressed that particular idea of eternal and 
necessary existence which all nations attached to their 
terms for the Supreme Being, and which is traceable 
in all his names and titles, even to our own English 
word one, the first of numbers, as God is one. In 
the supreme sense, the one and first of all things. 

The synonyme of the name Yahouh is given in 
that truly sublime peom called 'The Blessings of the 
Twelve Tribes,' in the 33d of Deuteronomy : — 'The 
eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the 
everlasting arms.' 

From the original Amonian word On, the name 
of the Sun, the Greeks formed their o Slv , the Being, 
and- their adjective forms of that word acoviog, which 
is the word translated eternal and everlasting. 

My English readers will easily remember this 
derivation, by the substitution of the aionian instead 
of eternal, which they find in the first stanzas of 
Pope's Messiah: — 

'Ye nymphs of Solyma, begin the song, 
To heavenly themes sublimer strains belong ; 
The mossy fountains, and the Sylvan shades, 
The dreams of Pindus, and the Aonian maids, 
Delight no more ! 0, Thou my voice inspire, 
Who touched Isaiah's hallowed lips with fire I' 



262 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

The Aonian maids means the eternal maids ; and 
this attribute of eternity, the nine muses received from 
their constant attendance on the Sun, whose Egyptian 
name was On, and who was always meant and referred 
to as the Everlasting God and the Eternal One. 

The Greek word for one, the first of numbers, 
(though not formed, as all our European words for 
ONE are, from the Egyptian word ON, which means 
the Sun) is the word ££?, which is the Greek pronuncia- 
tion of the Hebrew word laa, the fire, which is the Sun, 
of which, by a most wonderful assimilation, they 
formed the feminine in the wholly different word Mm, 
which is an abbreviation of the word Maria, and the 
neuter in ev, which is the same as ON. Thus have 
we, in the first word of the Greek language, as found 
in the first writer that ever wrote in that language, 
even in the structure of the language itself, the 
primordial theme of the Christian Trinity, the three-in- 
one : the scg } masculine ; Mm, feminine ; and ev, neuter, 
that is, the Fire, the Virgin Mary, the Sun. 

To the Amonian title ON, or eon, was frequently 
added the universal name of God, El, and the com- 
pound word El-Eon, signifying God Eternal, or the 
Eternal God ; and also the name of the noblest of 
animals, the Lion; the Lion was transferred to the 
highest domicile of the Zodiac, and became the type of 
the Sun, being then most high : the Sun in July, as 
having attained his highest altitude and splendor. El- 
Ion is the Hebrew tor the most high, and from this 
word the Greeks formed their objective case of 
7]?iLog, rjXtov, the Sun. From the domicile of the Sun 
in the Lion of July adjoining on that of the Crab of 
September, when the Sun begins to descend, the claws 
or arms of the Crab in the Egyptian diagrams of the 
Zodiac were represented as spread out or extended 
below the path of the Lion ; and hence affording the 



THE LOED. 263 

idea of support and security from falling, which is the 
solution of those beautiful figures of the allegory, ' the 
eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the 
everlasting arms.' It is none other than the claws of 
the Crab, which, had they been duly depicted accord- 
ing to their position in the heavens, would have pre- 
sented to your eye the exact position of the everlasting 
arms, as it is none other than the Lion of the tribe of 
Iou-Dah, who is the literal and ultimate antitype of 
the Hebrew El-Elion, the Most High God. 

As also had the Zodiacal Lion been depicted, as it 
certainly was in the most ancient Persian and Arabian 
Zodiacs, with the Bee, which the iVrabs call the honey- 
fly, flying into his mouth, I would not have told the 
fool that couldn't have guessed the meaning of Sam- 
son's riddle : — k Out of the eater came forth meat, and 
out of the strong came forth sweetness.' Judges, 
xiv. 14. 

The Lion bears a most prominent part in all the 
figures of speech, of all languages, expressive of 
strength, power, and magnanimity, The cherubim 
which shadowed the mercy-seat of Yahouh had each 
four faces : the face of a man, and of a calf, and an 
eagle, and a lion. 

1 And every one,' says the holy prophet, * had four 
faces, and every one had four wings. And their feet 
were straight feet ; and the soles of their feet were like 
the soles of a calf 's foot ; and they sparkled like the 
color of burning brass.' (1 Ezekiel.) Their wings 
were joined one to another, they turned not when they 
went, they went every one straight forward ; and they 
had the hands of a man under their wings ; but they 
had but one leg between the four of 'em ; so that, 
however they might differ in opinion, there was at 
least a common understanding between them. 

Now, look ye, Sirs, at the desperate ignorance and 



264 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

measureless intolerance of your Protestant preachers of 
the gospel. It is thought no impiety, no profaneness, 
no approach to a disrespect for the language of holy 
writ, and no dishonor of the Supreme Being, where 
the most evangelical and orthodox Parkhurst adorns 
his Hebrew and Greek Lexicons with a picture of these 
four-fold Siamese youths, and declares in his text that 
they are the real likeness of God Almighty, even the 
express image of his person ! 

So — so ! And do fools rush in where angels fear 
to tread ? Or does that name rather belong to those 
who receive a book as the word of God, of which they 
no more know the meaning than the incapable earth 
on which they tread, or to the man who does know the 
meaning ? 

Can anything be more immoral, more essentially 
unjust, cruel, and wicked, than the conduct of those 
barbarous dunces, who, conscious of the deepest igno- 
rance, and of their utter inability to give any sort of 
explanation of the deep things of God, become the ene- 
mies of those who can explain them ? 

This can I, tapatt) ^nsk Yeshemeng Chequem ve 
yousvp lequeeh. ' Let the wise hear, and he shall 
increase learning.' 

Turn ye to the mystic text of the New Covenant, 
and we shall find the cherubic monsters which, in the 
Old Covenant were represented as the person of 
Yahouh himself, in the most uneasy state imaginable : 
' they were full of eyes within, and they rest not day 
nor night, saying Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God Al- 
mighty, which was, and is, and is to come.' 

But you don't know the meaning of all this, and I 
am sure that your Christian ministers cannot tell, as 
I am sure that I can, and that is the ground of all 
difference between us. Go to your churches and cha- 
pels, ye who are content to be ignorant, and wish to 



THE LOED. 265 

know no more ; but here we follow on to know the 
Lord. Attend ye, Sirs, and I will teach you the fear 
of the Lord, and show you the knowledge of the Most 
High. 

Upon the Egyptian radical word ON, for the Sun, 
(adopted as the participial present of the Greek verb 
eivai,, to BE, and hence forming the participial noun 
substantive o Qv t the Being, that which is,) followed 
the necessary addition of the other two participials the 
7\v and the oepxofievog, which was, and which is to 
come. 

The notion of a trinity, or triple mode of existence, 
thus grew upon the unity and emphatic oneness of 
the Supreme Being, growing as naturally out of the 
three tenses — -present, past, and future, of the partici- 
ple of the verb to be, which expressed being and ex- 
istence, — as it grew out of the three genders, mascu- 
line, feminine, and neuter, of the noun substantive 
ONE. And they who worshipped the Almighty, which 
was, and which is, were led, by the sound of the word 
rather than the sense, to imagine a distinction where 
none was intended, in the o epxofievog, which is to come. 
And hence the universal expectation, originating in an 
abuse of language, of some divine person that was to come, 
and even the title itself of the He that should come, 
which opened the door to the infinite superstitions 
which grew on so ridiculous a mistake. 

Hence the allegorical message of John the Baptist 
to Christ, 'Art thou the o epxofisvog, the He that should 
come, or do we look for another V 

And that commonly quoted, and as commonly mis- 
quoted passage of Suetonius — ■ Percrebuerat Orienta 
toto, vetus et constans opinio esse in fatis ut eo tem- 
pore Judaea profecti rerum potirentur.' An ancient and 
fixed opinion had prevailed throughout the east that 
it was decreed by the fates that some one coming out 

12 



266 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

of Judea, at that time, should obtain the empire of the 
world. But it was always from the east, never any- 
where but from the east, that this always and eternally 
to come deity was to be expected : thus identifying him 
with the o tjv, the which was, and the o Slv, the which 
is — i. e., the ON, which is the direct and literal name — 
the Sun, which is God Almighty, the eternally existing 
one, 'which was, and which is, and which is to come.' 

Who, then, are those, or rather is, those four in 
one Siamese youths, with their Man, Lion, Eagle, and 
Bull faces, with six wings, and full of eyes within, 
which address the triune Yahouh, which was, and 
which is, and which is to come ? Abeste, Abeste, O 
procul abeste profani. Be far hence, be far hence, O 
be far hence, ye who are profane ; for it is written, 
none of the wicked shall understand, but the wise 
shall understand ! 

Unto you shall it be given at this moment to un- 
derstand the mysteries of the kingdom of God ; but 
unto them that are without, all these things are done 
in parables, etc. 

I cut the ligature which ties this Lion, Man, Bull, 
and Eagle together, and let them betake themselves 
to whatever point of the compass they please. 

Now, then, let them tell us who can ; and for 
what other reason than that which will occur is it that, 
in all their painted windows and altar-pieces in the 
most ancient and venerable Christian cathedrals, 
churches and temples, the four evangelists are (and 
ever have been) depicted as writing their gospels, with 
the demon or genius, under whose divine inspiration 
they are believed to have written them, making an 
essential part of the picture ; so that you distinguish 
the one from the other only by their respective 
genius : that of Matthew is a Lion, who sits under 
the table like a domestic dog, and growls forth inspi- 



THE LORD. 267 

ration ; but there the Lion is the genius of the month 
July, and of the summer quarter of the year. 

But the genius of Saint Mark, by a more than 
extraordinary coincidence of emblem and character, 
happens to be a jnan, in a stooping attitude, leaning 
over his shoulder, and whispering to him the dictates 
of infinite wisdom. 

Nor has the church of Christ any better evidence 
than this hieroglyph, for the universally-received no- 
tion that St. Mark wrote his gospel under the direc- 
tion and dictation of St. Peter. And there he is, the 
genius of the month of January, and of the winter 
quarter of the year ; for ye need not wonder, after 
his cursing and swearing, as he did, that he did not 
know his master, that there should be a little coolness 
between them : for though he afterwards repented, 
and wept bitterly, yet one cannot look upon his hiero- 
glyph without something suggesting to us, that water 
might be cheap enough with him. 

As the days during the winter quarter are the 
shortest, so St. Mark's gospel, as written under the 
inspiration of this genius, is twelve chapters short 
of the length of St. Mathew's, which is the longest; 
eight short of that of St. Luke, and five short of St. 
John, which two are about and equinoctial length. 

Of what use would an understanding be to man, 
if it were possible to mistake, in that same Aquarius, 
the Water-bearer, the genius of the first of the months, 
the common characters of Reuben, the first of Patri- 
archs, of whom the dying Jacob prophesied, ' Reuben, 
thou art my first born, my might, and the beginning 
of my strength, — unstable as water, thou shalt not 
excel.' Gen. 49. And of whom the living Balaam 
prophesied, ' He shall pour the water out of his buck- 
ets, and his King shall be higher than Agag, and his 
kingdom shall be exalted.' Numbers xxiii. 6. 



268 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

The same Janus Bifrons, or two-faced Janus of 
mythology, that looked both on the old and new year, 
as the St. Peter looks one way and the St. Mark 
the other, in the Christian hierogram. 

The St. Peter, the chief of the apostles, to whom 
was committed the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven ; 
and the Saint Januarius, Bishop of Benevento, whose 
blood is kept in a bottle at Naples, and turns to 
water every year, which is as true as all the rest 
of it. 

But the inspiring genius of St'. Luke's spell is al- 
ways represented as a Bull ; and. there he is, the ge- 
nius of the month April, and of the spring quarter. 

The inspiring genius of St. John's spell is an 
eagle, and there he is not ; because the eagle, not 
falling within the breadth of the Zodiac, yields his 
place to the Scorpion, the genius of October, or the 
autumnal quarter, though being nearer to the Sun. 
As John was the beloved disciple, and leant on his 
bosom as he sat at meat, that is the Sun in autumn. 
A line drawn through the Scorpion would pass through 
the eagle, and therefore the eagle is as essentially 
the genius of October as that hideous animal. 

The three months of the year commencing in Oc- 
tober, and introducing the reign of water, were em- 
phatically called the gates of hell ; and the key of 
hell-gates, as being a more important trust, was com- 
mitted to St. John, who is the eagle or demon that 
had the key of the bottomless pit : while the keys of 
heaven, a charge of less importance, were committed 
to St. Peter, with the consolatory assurance that the 
gates of hell should not prevail against it. 

But I will unlock to you the gates of hell, and 
what see ye there ? Even none other than the Scor- 
pion of October, that hideous, crawling worm, which 
our blessed Saviour three times declares to have its 



THE LORD. 269 

place in that mansion of the damned, ' where the 
worm dieth not, and where the fire' — that is, the solar 
heat, notwithstanding its sensible diminution to our 
perceptions, — 'is not quenched.' 

It is that Scorpion, that immortal worm, 'the 
worm which never dieth,' which, standing there in the 
gates of hell, pledgeth to us the consolatory assu- 
rance that the Sun — that is, the Supreme God, — in 
descending into that gloomy region, is still immortal ; 
and, as that worm dieth not, so the glory of the Sun 
is not impaired and his fire is not quenched. 

This Zodiacal worm, like all the rest of the signs 
of the Zodiac, was, in its turn, worshipped as the Su- 
preme God ; and it is none other than the most intel- 
ligent father of the Christian church who assures us, 
that it was Jesus Christ himself who, in the 22nd 
Psalm, contemplating his descent into the lower re- 
gions, spoke in this character : ' But as for me, I am 
a worm, and no man ; a very scorn of men, and the 
out-cast of the people.' Psalm xxii. 6. 

Many of our learned translators render the word 
Tulenget, — oko)^ or scarabaaus, or cockchafer ; and 
one of the titles of Hercules was Scarabaaus, or Her- 
cules the cockchafer. But it is Christian, and not 
Pagan piety, to which we owe this sublime interpre- 
tation. 

It is the learned father Athanasius Kircherius who 
instructs us that, by the black-beetle, the scarabasus, 
was signified * the only begotten Son of God, by whom 
all things were made, and without whom was not any- 
thing made that was made.' 

The reasoning, then, of the Christian father, Ire- 
naaus, that there were four gospels, because there were 
four seasons of the year, after all the contempt which 
those who have invented the absurd conceit of a sup- 
posed historical basis of these divine poems would 



270 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

cast on it, is indeed the true and real account of the 
matter. 

The spells themselves are, and ever were, entirely 
anonymus compositions : and their descent to us, un- 
der the name of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, 
merely signifies that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, 
are the allegorical names of the Genii of Spring, Sum- 
mer, Autumn, and Winter ; as the express term 
Saint, added to their names, expressly assures us, — 
Saints, signifying precisely the same as the Genii of 
the Arabian Nights ' Entertainment, whose bodies 
were all smoke, and who never had any speculation in 
those eyes with which they did glare withal. 

Sanctus was the ancient Sabine name of the Sun; 
and no word derived from it, or compounded of it, 
ever had or could have any other signification than of 
something of, or pertaining to, the Sun. . The spells, 
therefore, are not said to be written by these Solar 
Genii or Saints, but according to them ; that is, they 
are proper to be read as so divided, each spell in each 
respective quarter of the year over which the genius 
or demon, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, respec- 
tively presided. And in this character these demons 
of the Good Spell succeeded the Dii Penates, or 
Household Gods of the ancient Pagans, of whom 
Dionysius of Halicarnassus instructs us, that we must 
restrain our curiosity ; and, out of respect, abstain 
from penetrating too far into these mysteries of re- 
ligion. 

We certainly know, however, that these evangel- 
ists have been worshipped in the Christian church for 
ages, under the same secondary or subordinate ho- 
mage as was paid to the little gods, or guardian angels, 
of pagan Greece and Rome. 

As in that Christian form of prayer, to be said 
every night, expressly addressed to them, beginning: 



THE LORD. 271 

* Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, 
Bless the bed that I lie on/ &c. 

Or, as in the well-known evening hymn of our Pro- 
testant Bishop Kerr : 

1 May my blest guardian, while I sleep, 
Close to my bed his vigil keep : 
And, in my stead, all the night long, 
Sing to my God a pretty song.' 

Their emblems are the mystic cherubim, distinct 
in their respective faces, as that of the Lion of Mat- 
thew, the Man of Mark, the Bull of Luke, and the 
Eagle of St. John, as distinctively presiding over the 
seasons to which they are assigned, yet uniting in 
object and standing upon one leg, as common to the 
four of them, with one instinctive spirit, one common 
design and purpose, to fulfil their high function as 
ministers of the Sun, and to proclaim the acceptable 
year of the Lord. 

And ' they were full of eyes within' — that is, in- 
numerable stars of all degress of magnitude fall within 
the imaginary monstrous outline of the whole constel- 
lation. 

And ' they rest not day nor night ;' they are in 
continual motion, moving with a velocity in compari- 
son to which the motion of a cannon-ball, or the 
swiftest stroke or momentum known to man, were 
tardy as the creeping of a snail. 

" So, late described by Herschel's piercing sight, 
Hang the bright squadrons of the twinkling light." 
Ten thousand marshal'd stars, a silvery zone, 
Effuse their blended radiance round her throne : 
Suns call to Suns, in lucid orbs conspire, 
And light exterior worlds with golden fire." 



272 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

'And the sole of their foot was as the sole of a calf's 
foot.' In the apparently most monstrous and insanely 
foolish statement, which is, however, the text of sacred 
scripture — which none of theChristian community under- 
stand, and none of their Christian ministers could 
explain to them, — is involved a most curious and 
inestimably valuable item of chronological knowledge. 

Before closing this discourse, I wish it to be re- 
membered, that it is no part of my design to bring the 
holy scriptures into unmerited contempt, but purely 
to show what their real and unsophisticated meaning 
is, which I am sure the general body of the Christian 
community are as entirely ignorant of as the general 
order of Christian preachers are unable to instruct 
them. However strange, monstrous, and apparently 
ridiculous many of the great discoveries I shall have 
to make may seem at first blush, as the signs 
and symbols of every science would to the dunce 
who had no mind to study them, or to the bad and 
wicked men who wish to be ignorant of them, — de- 
light, instruction, and the entire conviction of your 
minds, in the great truths of which these much mis- 
understood and infinitely perverted allegories are the 
type, will, I am sure, reward the pains of your inge- 
nuous attention to the following facts : — 

Upon our certain knowledge, collected from inde- 
pendent sources, it appears that the priests of Egypt 
(the religion or astronomical allegory of both the Old 
and the New Covenant, — that is, the Old and New 
Projections of the Planisphere) calculated the procession 
of the Equinoxes with absolute accuracy, even to the 
same fifty seconds, nine-thirds, and three-fourths of a 
third of a moment, which is the calculation at this day ; 
yet we find an entire degree is lost or displaced in 
seventy-one years, plus eight or nine months : and, 
consequently, an entire sign is lost in 2152 years. 



THE LORD. 273 

Now, it being ascertained as it is, beyond all ques- 
tion, that the vernal equinoxial point was in the first 
degree of Aries, the Ram, or Lamb of God, in the 
year 388 before our vulgar era, (as it is now somewhat 
beyond the second of the fishes) it results that it was 
in the first degree of Taurus, the Bull, or Calf of 
God, exactly 2540 years before that time ; making 
4370 from the present time, when the Vernal Equi- 
noctial point, or the Sun's position upon entering 
into his heavenly kingdom, was in the foot of the calf; 
and, inferentially, this divine covenant or planisphere 
of the visible heavens was constructed.* And this is 
the solution of the sacred enigma, ' the sole of their 
foot was as the sole of a calf's foot.' Their having 
but one foot, when reckoning two for the eagle, two 
for the man, and four a-piece for the Lion and the 
Bull, there would at least have wanted twelve feet, is 
farther proof, that the sole of their foot being as the 
sole of a calf's foot, is a mystical indication of data 
or time, which being fixed and determined can 
necessarily be but one. 

And as the Lion is the common emblem both of 
God and the Devil, so the cloven-foot was common to 
both those parties, as we find the Devil himself was 
worshipped by the Syrians, Cretans, and Canaanites, 
under the title Ab El Eon — that is, Abelion — that 
is, Father, God, the Son, or ' Our Father, which art in 
Heaven' — that is, the angel of the bottomless pit, 
whose name, in the Hebrew, says St. John, is 
Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name 
Apollo. 

Of which, the result is, that this whole mystic doc- 
trine of the two principles of good and evil, God and 

* And, indeed, the Bull, always represented as couching, turns 
up his left fore foot, as if to show there the very star which, upon 
regular principles of science, will show not only the year, but the day 
of the month. 

12* 



274 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

Devil, is an allegorical exhibition of astronomical 
science, drawn up, by whoever drew it up, when the 
vernal equinoctial point was in the calf's foot — that 
is, as the calculation proves, 4370 years ago, which may 
be safely assigned as the nearest possible date of the 
gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. 



XVI. -MOSES. 



" But even unto this day, when Moses is read, ike veil is upon their 
hearts," — 2 Corinthians iii. 15. 



The veil ! Gentlemen, O' God's name ! the veil ! 
what is a veil ? but something that hides something ? 
a something that sometimes may be very pretty, and 
sometimes something that we won't say anything 
about. 

And what is a veil upon the heart ? but a force of 
prejudices and prepossessions there, which hinders a 
man from seeing, what were else plain enough to be 
seen, and sets him, like the Devil in Chaos, groping 
his way at noon-day, as if to justify that satire on 
humanity — 

" Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd ; 
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world." — Pope. 

And what is such a veil upon the heart, so par- 
ticularly hiding and obscuring what else should be 
sufficiently apparent, ' when Moses is read,' but that 
egregious vanity and dreaming arrogance which has 
led men to mistake fictions for facts, allegories for his- 
tories, the vehicle that conveyed the instruction for 
the instruction, the shell and husk of knowledge for 
the kernel, and the gross first scene that struck their 



276 A STKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

infant stupidity, for the ultimate sense intended. 

The mischief of this resting in the first sense that 
first strikes the mind, is deplored by the apostle, even 
with respect to the allegories of the New Testament, 
of which he says, ' the letter killeth ;' and than which, 
in no terms else, more strong and more emphatic, 
could he have said, that the taking the New Tes- 
tament to be a history, or to contain a word of literal 
truth, is the most murderous mistake and ' damnable 
heresy' that ever — Wo more about that. 

But ' when Moses is read,' there is also a veil in 
the case. We have seen of Abraham, and of his bond- 
woman, and of his free- woman, and of his two sons : 
the one by the bond-woman, who was Mount Sinai, 
in Arabia, and the other by a free- woman, which was 
Jerusalem, in the sky, that these things are an admit- 
ted and declared allegory. 

It is they, therefore, who impugn the authority of 
Scripture, who, in spite of the declared allegorical 
sense, take upon themselves to burthen the text with 
a sense which the text itself disclaims, — a sense, or 
rather nonsense, of their own arbitrary imposition, a 
sense that outrages reason, and would pawn our full- 
grown faculties in a subscription to tales so monstrous 
as infancy might point the finger at, and cry shame 
upon manhood ! 

For where were there ever any tales of the nur- 
sery that had more of the character of lullaby baby in 
them, than the egregious literality of Noah's Ark, and 
Moses in the bulrushes, and the children of Israel in 
the wilderness, and God with them, and nothing to 
eat, and ' forty years long was he grieved with that 
generation, and said' — but saying wasn't the worst 
on't, he swore, and because he could swear by no 
greater, he swore by himseit, and so God swore by 
God, — and after promising them a land flowing with 



moses. 277 

milk and honey, killed them all, and then left to their 
descendants no better land than the best that was to 
be got by fighting for it. 

But the allegorical sense, which we have followed 
so distinctly, and I hope convincingly, through the 
whole detail of the Book of Genesis, relieves human- 
ity, relieves our reason, from what the Apostle Peter, 
with striking propriety, calls a yoke, which neither 
our fathers nor we ' were able to bear,' and for which 
the apostle of the Gentiles so tartly rallies his con- 
verts of Galatia: "Are ye so foolish, that having be- 
gun in the spirit, ye would now be made perfect in 
the flesh? Tell me, ye that desire to be under the 
} aw , — do ye not hear the law ? How turn ye again 
to those weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye 
desire again to be in bondage ? 

To the astrological Book of Genesis succeeds an- 
other entirely anonymus volume, bearing the Greek 
title Exodus, a word nowhere occurring in the course 
of the treatise to which it is affixed, nor in any part 
of the whole compilation which we designate the Bible, 
or Book. 

As I have already shown proofs, I think irrefuta- 
ble, that the earliest or original text of the whole, or 
very much of the New Testament, was in the Latin 
tongue, afterwards rendered into Greek : so I think 
that it is never for a moment to be admitted, that the 
Hebrew was the original vehicle of the Books of the 
Old Testament. The Greek title Exodus, like Gene- 
sis, which is also Greek, would, in its extraneous 
sense, evidently bespeak an astronomical technicality. 
As Genesis refers to the cosmogony or imaginary 
4 generation of the heavens and all the host of them ;' 
so the Exodus, or coming out (till other reasons 
shall seem to challenge a more confined sense of the 
word), would refer to the coming out or emergence of 



278 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

the Stars, those literal btirwfr *fi from their house of 
bondage, or land of darkness, below the visible hori- 
zon, into the region of the milky-way, the astronomi- 
cal promised 'land flowing with milk and honey.' Its 
elementary reference, however, is evidently to the 
allegorical history, which the Book details, of a set 
of slaves most absurdly and monstrously supposed to 
be the direct ancestors of those whom we now call 
Jews. 

But the fact may startle the stagnation of faith 
itself, that as all nations have had their fabulous Ge- 
nesis, or cosmogonies, in which they have described 
an imaginary creation of the world ; and created, you 
may be sure, for nobody's convenience but theirs, and 
that of their immediate pedigree, so even the most 
barbarous nations have invented their imaginary Ex- 
oduses too, or fabulous accounts of their emigrations, 
settlements, and colonizations, of which, the Odyssey 
of Homer, and the ^Eneis of Virgil, are direct speci- 
mens ; and in which respect our Bible story is so far 
from originality, that we find in it nothing else but a 
direct plagiarism, how derived we need neither know 
nor care ; but most certainly it is a plagiarism from 
the Exodus of the God Yitziputzli, the Almighty and 
Everlasting God, be sure on't, of the Mexicans, who 
was made of very precious wood, — wood quite as pre- 
cious (I'll answer for't) as the cedar beams of the tem- 
ple, or the shittim wood of the covenant box. This 
God was represented under the human shape, seated 
in a chair of sky-coloured blue, and supported by a 
litter, with four serpents' heads at the four corners. 
He had a blue forehead, and a blue streak right across 
his nose, (a sort of sign of the cross, I dare say, 
extending from ear to ear.) So you see, my breth- 
ren, there are such things as blue Gods, as well as 
blue Devils ; and, for all I know, this may be the 



moses. 279 

best reason which can be assigned why Godly people, 
of all denominations, whenever you say anything 
about their Vitziputzlis, always look blue at you. 

But this extraordinary attachment to the blue 
colour, which runs through all the multifarious modi- 
fications of human piety, demands from us its physi- 
cal interpretation. 

Whatever beauty there might have been in the 
blue nose of the God of Mexico, it must be insensi- 
bility itself that could resist the blue eyes of the six- 
teen thousand wives of the God of India. The poetry 
of their divine book rises into astonishing sublimity 
in the description. 

"The flowers that fell from the bosoms of the 
Gopias, as they danced round Chrishna, attracted all 
the bees of heaven. The bird's wing suspended its 
stroke on the buoyant air, to listen to the tinkling of 
their feet ; and nature panted in sympathetic languish- 
ings, while their blue eyes were fixed on Chrishna. " — 
Maurice's History of Hindostan. 

So, too, forsooth, the God of Israel must have 
his blue curtains, blue ribbons, blue carpets, and blue 
bonnets. 

" the blue bonnets are over the border." 

And the .Lord spake unto Moses as a boarding- 
school miss might to a haberdasher. And the Lord 
commanded Moses, and he made the robe of the 
Ephod of woven work, all of blue. And they did 
bind the breast-plate by his rings unto the rings of 
the Ephod, and they cut the gold into wire to work it 
into the blue ; and the veil itself, of the Holy of Ho- 
lies, was a veil of blue, and purple, and scarlet, of 
cunning work, with cherubims upon it, "and thou 
shalt hang it upon four pillars of shittim wood, over- 



280 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

laid with gold : and see (said God) that thou make 
all things according to the pattern." 

Would anything but a severe experience have led 
us to believe, that it should be those who did not 
mean to launch the keenest sarcasm against scripture, 
who would contend for a literal sense, or the existence 
of an iota of literal truth, in these transactions be- 
tween God and the milliners and mantua-makers in 
the wilderness, whilst they could dispute the equal 
respectability, the prior existence, and the identical 
significancy of the mythology of the blue-nosed Vitzi- 
putzli. 

With how poignant a significancy might the apos- 
tle say, "Even unto this day, when Moses is read, 
the veil is upon their heart," who see on that blue 
veil, with its cunning work of cherubims, aught else 
than an astronomical JEidouranean ; a picture of the 
blue arch of night, all of it the workmanship of a cun- 
ning workman, who taught astronomy by a mechani- 
cal apparatus : and " spreadeth out the heavens like 
a curtain." 

Thus the God Jehovah, of the Israelites, is but a 
version, and evidently a considerably improved ver- 
sion, of the blue-nosed Yitziputzli of the Mexicans 
A literal rendering of the Hebrew text would, how- 
ever, present us with stronger features of resemblance, 
than appear in our wide-off European translations. 

The Lord is long suffering and full of compassion, 
is a sublime, but not a faithful rendering of the ori- 
ginal text, which is : — The Lord hath a long nose. 

Vitziputzli's astronomical character, in common 
with that of Jehovah, was indicated by an azure 
globe under his feet, representing the heavens ; and, 
like Jehovah, he was placed on a very high altar,* 

* For, " as the Hill of Basan, so is God's hill, even a high hill, 
as the Hill of Basan. Why hop ye so, ye high hills ?" 



MOSFS. 281 

and surrounded with curtains : in his right hand he 
held a snake. 'As Moses lifted up the serpent in the 
wilderness,' the universal emblem of eternal life, and 
in his left a buckler covered with five white feathers, 
set cross-wise. He had also on his head a helmet of 
feathers made in the shape of a bird. 

I build no argument on what I must, nevertheless, 
hold to be the only probable significancy of these hie- 
roglyphs : the shield, the natural emblem of a warrior. 
' And it is the Lord who is a man of war, the Lord of 
Hosts is his name.' The feathers on his head, the em- 
blem of victory ; the cross upon the nose, from ear to 
ear ; the cross again, set in feathers upon the shield, 
indicating a victory or triumph on the cross, or some 
sort of mystical victory connected with or resulting from 
the cross ; and the bird upon the head, like the Eagle of 
Jupiter, the Peacock of Juno, the Owl of Minerva, the 
Sparrow of Venus, the Crow of Mithras, the Hawk of 
Osiris, the Cock of Esculapius, the Kite of Vichenu, the 
Swan of the Nine Muses, the Dove of Jesus Christ, 
and the Holy Ghost upon the top-knot of God the Fa- 
ther : the never-omitted, never-wanting hieroglyph of 
every form, in which religion of any character, in all 
ages and nations of the world hath ever existed among 
men. 

But it is the peculiar theology of the Exodus of 
this God, which demands our selection of him, out of 
the millions of chimerical creations, as the evident first 
sketch of the mythological Exodus of the Bible. 

The Mexicans ascribe their settlement in that 
country to the direction of their blue-nosed deity 
Yitziputzli. The first inhabitants were a set of sav- 
ages, not to be compared, I dare say, with the highly 
civilized worshippers and chosen people of the true 
God, the blue-nosed Yitziputzli : they were all 
Canaanites, you know, and Hivites, and Hittites, and 



282 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

Perrizites, and Jebusites, and that was reason enough 
for their having their throats cut by the command of 
Vitziputzli, under the direction of the great captain 
and law-giver of the Mexicans, — that meekest of men 
their General Mexi. 

These Mexicans were a northern people, and un- 
dertook this expedition at the express command of their 
God, who promised them success ; with this only apparent 
difference, between his promises and those Of the other 
deity ; — that blue-nose seems to have kept his promise, 
while long-nose let 'em know his breach of promise. 
' And ye shall know my breach of promise.' Numbers 
xvi. 34. 

Mexi marched at the head of these adventurers, 
while four priests carried Vitziputzli in a trunk or 
chest made of reeds. But whenever they encamped, 
they erected a tabernacle in the midst of the camp, 
and placed their jack-in-the-box, master Vitziputzli, 
box and all, upon the altar. They never ventured to 
proceed in their march, or to encamp, without first 
consulting Vitziputzli, and implicitly received and 
obeyed his orders. Being at last arrived at the prom- 
ised land, the God appeared to one of their priests 
in a dream, and commanded them to settle in that part 
of the lake where an Eagle should be found sitting on 
a fig-tree growing out of a rock. The priest related 
his vision, and the place being found by the signs pre- 
appointed, they there laid the foundations of Mexico. 
This celebrated city was divided into four quarters or 
districts, and in the middle was placed the tabernacle 
of Vitziputzli, till a proper temple should be built to 
receive him. 

Precisely such an appearance of God in a dream 
is. detailed, as occurring to the priest Nathan, (2 
Samuel, 7,) and in the 132d Psalm, that beautiful 
collection of the idolatrous piety of the whole world : 



moses. 283 

we have the impassioned exclamations of their king 
upon the admonition so conveyed: 

' Lord, remember David, and all his trouble. How 
he sware unto the Lord : and vowed a vow unto the 
Almighty God of Jacob : I will not come within the 
tabernacle of my house ; nor climb up into my bed. 
I will not suffer mine eyes to slumber, neither the 
temples of my head to take any rest, until I find out 
a place for the temple of the Lord, an habitation for 
the mighty God of Jacob. Lo, we heard the same at 
Ephrata, and found it in the wood. Arise, O Lord, 
unto thy resting place, thou and the ark of thy strength.' 
As much as to say, go to bed, Yitziputzli, for I'm sure 
you must be confoundedly tired, and take your box of 
shittim wood with you. 

But what but an hallucination of mind can it be 
that makes the words of so flagrant idolatry, so sub- 
lime and solemn to our apprehension, just so long, and 
no longer, than we are ignorant of their meaning. 

Or what but the veil upon our hearts, when Moses 
is read, and the perfect applicability to ourselves of 
that severe rebuke, 'This people's heart is waxed gross,' 
has hindered us from seeing, that the whole story of the 
Exodus of the children of Israel never had a word of 
truth in it, nor ever was intended to pass for truth. 

4 For I would not, brethren, have you ignorant,' 
says the apostle, ' how that all our Fathers were un- 
der the cloud, and all passed through the sea ; and 
were all baptized unto Moses, in the cloud and in the 
sea.' 

And this, Sirs, is the language of inspiration, to a 
gentile people, not to Jews ; to Greeks, not to He- 
brews : to the church of God which was at Corinth ; 
as far off, and as unambitious of any claims of pedi- 
gree or descent, in common with those whom we now 
call Jews, as the church of God which is in Jewin 



284 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

street, or as any church or community of people upon 
earth. 

But it was all our fathers, — the primeval ancestors 
and aborigines of every nation under heaven, who were 
all of them under the cloud, and all passed through 
the sea; and did all eat the same spiritual meat, and 
did all drink the same spiritual drink — that is to say, 
i God only knows what they ate or drank,' or who 
they were, or how they lived, or where they came 
from.' ' For,' says the Psalmist, « he rained down 
manna upon them to eat, and gave them food from 
Heaven.' So man did eat angel's food, for he sent 
'em meat enough. It was very cheap, and they called 
it Man-hua — that is to say, What d'ye call itf 
Which is as accurate a description as we can reason- 
ably expect of the nature of spiritual food. But by 
comparing spiritual things with spiritual, we learn 
that this angel's food was not only very eheap, but 
it was very nasty : and God only gave them enough 
of it, but a little more than enough ; since they 
had the impudence to tell Moses that their souls 
loathed it. For, notwithstanding its descent from the 
celestial pantry, it was very apt to offend the nostrils. 
The Rabbinical commentary on the Chaldee version 
of Onkelos, intimates that it was not unlike the scrap- 
ings of a wall. For that they hadn't much reason to 
say, ' thank God for a good dinner' after it, is more 
than intimated in the 78th psalm ; where we are told 
that though it rained flesh upon them as thick as dust, 
and poultry like as the sand of the sea, and they were 
not disappointed of their lusts, yet while the meat was 
yet in their mouths, the heavy wrath of God came 
upon them, and slew the wealthiest of 'em. 

, Can a literal sense, can any sense whatever approach- 
ing to a feature of possible reality, be imagined for such 
words as that they all drank of the same spiritual drink, 



moses. 285 

for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, 
and that rock was Christ, — that was drink that there 
was no drinking of. Drank of a rock! a spiritual 
rock ; a rock that rocked along with them in their 
march ; a rock that followed them ; a rocking rock ; 
a rock that was no rock at all ; a rock that was a man! 
and a man that was no man at all ! not in existence 
till three or four thousand years after the rocking was 
all over ; the spouse of the church ; the same, says St. 
Stephen, that was with the church in the wilderness ; 
a spouse that she could drink — 

" Her little husband no bigger than her thumb, 
She put him in a pint pot, and there let him drum." 

Thus, Sirs, must we descend to the idea of slob- 
bering infancy, and lock ourselves up in the nursery, to 
shut out the better information which challenges us in 
the summons of those words : ' To-day, if ye will hear 
his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provoca- 
tion in the day of temptation in the wilderness' — that 
is, to-day, after so long a time as it is said to-day. In 
any era of time, if ye will understand the meaning of 
these things, ' harden not your hearts ;' stupify not 
your own understandings so egregiously as ye have 
done in the provocation ; that is, in the provocation in 
the allegory, or calling things which be not, as though 
they were ; the calling out of a sense utterly distinct 
from the weak and beggarly elements of the mere 
words by which the moral history of the dark and 
ignorant wanderings of the unknown progenitors of 
the human race, and the physical phenomena of the 
Beni-Yesroile, or children of Israel, the stars of hea- 
ven, were pictured, under the hieroglyph of a 
nation going down into Egypt, and wandering in 
unknown regions of sandy desolation, and fed there, 



286 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

as of course they would have need be, with pabu- 
lum coeli, food from heaven, the proper food for stars, 
till their emergence again on the opposite side of the 
horizon. 

And this provocation, which is expressly called an 
allegory, in the Epistle to the Galatians, with reference 
to the persons of Agar and Sarah ; and which, in a 
former discourse, I so clearly unravelled through its 
involutions of the no less allegorical or provoked per- 
sonages of the twelve patriarchs, is, in the 4th 
of the Epistle to the Romans, given as a definition 
of the Faith of Abraham, who is the Father of 
us all — that is, the theory, the science, or mystical 
clue to the right understanding of the Abrahamic 
allegory. 

' As it is written, I have made thee a father of 
many nations before him whom he believed,'' that is, 
whom he understood, whom he was up to, was aware 
what he was driving at, ken'd the clue of his riddle, 
even God who quickeneth the dead, and calleth things 
which be not, as though they were. For thus, and 
thus alone, have the inanimate bodies and natural 
substances and forms of the whole planetary system 
been vivified into a poetical life, the physical pheno- 
mena of the universe paraphrased into imaginary his- 
tories, persons who never existed been represented as 
having existed, and things which were not called or 
spoken of as though they were. 

Thus the Apostle to the Hebrews having expressly 
defined faith, or this sublime allegorical science, as 
fc the substance of things hoped for ;' that is, the sup- 
position of imaginary transaction, the evidence of 
things not seen ; that is, a sort of second sight, a 
seeing of what nobody ever saw, a seeing of the things 
which were invisible, proceeds through all the great 
figments of the sacred science, to show us that it was 



moses. 287 

all by faith, or through faith, or in this enigmatical 
way of seeing the things which were invisible, that we 
understand that the worlds were framed by the word 
of God, so that things which are seen were not made 
of things which do appear (and which God knows 
there's no other way of understanding). And so it is 
by faith, that we are to understand how Abel, being 
dead, yet speaketh, and Enoch never died at all, and 
Noah prepared an ark, and xlbraham, Isaac, and Jacob 
looked for a city which had foundations, whose builder 
and maker was God, and Sarah had a child by a hus- 
band who was as good as dead. And by faith 
it was that Moses was such a proper child ; by 
faith they passed through the Bed Sea as on dry 
land ; by faith they blew the walls down with rams' 
horns. 

And Gideon, and Barak, and Samson, and Jepthah, 
and David, and Samuel, and all the rest of 'em: — 
By faith it was that they subdued kingdoms, wrought 
righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths 
of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the 
edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, 
came to life again after they were dead, were stoned, 
were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the 
sword, and wandered about in sheep skins and goat 
skins. It was all by faith, every word of it by faith. 
There never was an iota of literal truth or real history 
in any one of these hypostatical matters. Truth was 
not the thing intended. It was all in the visible and 
invisible ; the substantiated and unsubstantialities of 
allegorical astronomy, that the whole romantic theory 
was excogitated. In this sense of faith, is it to be 
understood, even where no other sense can be conceiv- 
ed;' in this sense, its monstrousities, its absurdities 
and contradictions, are innocent of those atrocious and 
revolting features which might justly authorize the 



288 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

apostle in saying, whatever is not of faith is sin, 
is hideous, is execrable, not to be borne, not to be 
endured ; but considered in faith, viewed only as the 
vehicles of an ulterior and latitant significancy, the 
mute symbols and senseless hieroglyphs of the science 
of the heavens, they fall like matrices and types into 
the setting forth of a glorious system ; a system, in 
the sublime study of which, the human faculties can 
never engage unprofltably ; a system, of which our 
poets would say : 

" In boundless love, and perfect wisdom form'd, 
And ever rising with the rising mind." 

Thus it proves that that peculiar technical term, 
faith, and those innumerable commendations and re- 
commendations of the principle of faith, which occur 
throughout the whole sacred allegory, instead of being 
calls on our credulity, are checks and notices set up 
in bar of it ; instead of requiring us to believe, are 
admonitions to us that we should not believe ; are de- 
precations of our criticism, and warnings to our under- 
standings, that the matter offered to us is not in itself 
true, nor of such a nature as that literal truth should 
be any part of its intent or purport. And thus our 
phrase, sacred history, is a contradiction in terms ; a 
joining of two predications which are negations of each 
other. For nothing that is sacred can be historical, 
and nothing that is historical can be sacred. If a 
thing be sacred, it is, therefore, on that account, cer- 
tainly not history : and if it be history, it is, there- 
fore not sacred. 

Sacred History is as monstrous a contradiction as 
fabulous truth, or a true romance ; and as gross an 
absurdity in the conceit of the thing, as if a fool 
should imagine that the diagrams in Euclid were his 



moses. 289 

science, and the sketches of animals on the celestial 
sphere had been all the sphere was made for. 

No such a term, nor any that could bear a sense 
of such a term as history, is to be found in any part 
of the sacred volume. It has originated mainly in 
the indolence and apathy of the clergy, and partly, 
perhaps, in their own participation in the common 
ignorance ; who, finding how hard it was to beat the 
vulgar mind out of the first impressions, -that the out- 
ward vehicles and machinery of instruction made upon 
them, and to raise their understandings to a compre- 
hension of the sublime, but occult meaning, gave way 
to the humor of the ferocious idiots, and let 'em rest in 
their first impressions, with a sort of despairing — 
Devil give ''em good out. 

And so Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses, 
and Aaron, and the arks, and the covenants, and the veils, 
and the altars, and the curtains, and the cherubim, and 
their ascendings and descendings, and their comings in 
and goings out, and their houses of bondage, and their 
lands of promise, all of them the machinery and figures of 
astronomy, were mistaken for realities ; just as the 
Orion, Arcturus, Perseus, Andromeda, Bootes ; and 
the arks, ships, fishes, snakes, serpents, dogs, lions, 
rams and lambs of the celestial sphere, mere figures to 
aid the memory, and to assist astronomical description, 
were mistaken for realities by the vulgar of the Pagan 
world ; what was all that they could understand, was 
with them, all that was to be understood ; the figures 
and epigraphs of science, were science enough for the 
comprehension of the staring and gaping baboons, who, 
while they had not wit enough to admit of their being- 
better instructed, had physical force enough to be — 
better not offended. Such pretty pictures, they thought, 
could not but belong to as pretty stories, and such 
pretty stories — Ah ! a man must know how to get 

13 



290 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

out of a window before he ventured to say that they 
were not exactly true. 

But it will be asked : If it be thus, then, that an 
historical sense put on what are called the records of 
the Jewish people, is so egregious an error, — and that 
no basis of reality or fact ever existed, or was so much 
as implied or intended in these scriptures, where does 
the province of reality commence ? Where does his- 
tory begin ? * The answer, in general terms, is obvious ; 
it begins where the principle of infidelity begins ; and 
where the principle of faith ends ; where men are no 
longer required to subdue and control their under- 
standings, but allowed and invited to the most unre- 
strained and fearless exercise of them. In which 
unrestrained and delightful freedom, of which the apos- 
tle speaks hieroglyphically, as being ' no more entan- 
gled in the yoke of bondage,' we arrive through a 
series of analogies at a discovery of truths which the 
mind contemplates as calmly and indifferently, but as 
satisfactorily, as the demonstrations of Euclid. And 
of such truths, these (as our investigations have thus 
far advanced) are emergent : — 

1st. That the books called Jewish, in modern 
language, are in reality no more Jewish than they are 
Chinese. 

2d. That the people called Jews, among us, are 
no nearer related or connected, in any sense, with 
the Beni-Yesroile or children of Israel of the Bible, 
than they are with the stars of heaven; 

3d. And can no more make, out a genealogy or de- 
scent from any such persons as Abraham, Isaac, and 
Jacob, than I from Hercules. 

That the Genesis and Exodus of sacred writ, in- 
stead of being a national or provincial archieve, are 
the theogony and cosmogony of the universe. ' These 



MOSES. 291 

are the generations of the heavens and the earth •' the 
very title of the book itself, where it commences at the 
fourth verse of the second chapter, after a preface by 
some other author, and where no other title is 
pretended. 

' These are the generations of the heavens and the 
earth:' that is, through all that follows the whole five 
books, absurdly ascribed to one of the principal heroes 
of the fiction, and probably inclusive of all the books, 
as far as the devotional Book of Psalms : these are 
the generations ; that is, these are an allegorical pano- 
rama of the phenomena of heaven and earth. Of 
which no nation upon earth, nor any sect of people 
that ever lived, were ever farther off from the right 
understanding, or ever had less share or lot in the 
matter, than those whom we now call Jews. 

It could not have been that real history, or any 
written notices whatever, should have been made or 
preserved of the insignificant adventures, and obscure 
and ever equivocal origination, of the uncivilized pro- 
genitors of all nations ; and in the absence of these, 
awakening curiosity was posseted to sleep again, by a 
substitution of the allegorized phenomena of the vis- 
ible heavens. 

And thus, as the natural question — who made 
us ? — God Almighty, would be followed by, and 

Where did we all come from : and how came we 
here? 

Those questions found equally sagacious answers 
in : — 

Why, you all came out of Egypt, to be sure ; or out 
of anywhere that was far enough off. 

And who brought us out ? 

Why, Yahouh sent Moushah ; or Vitziputzli sent 
Mexi ; or Jupiter sent Bacchus ; or somebody else 
sent somebody else, and fetched you out. 



292 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

But how did he get us over the sea ? 

Why, the sea dried up, to be sure, and ye went 
over dry shod. 

And how did Yitziputzli travel ? 

They carried him in a box. 

But where did we get victuals or drink all the 
while ? 

Why it rained victuals and drink. 

And what did we do for clothes ? 

O, the clothes that ye brought with ye, out of 
where you came from, were a sort of clothes that 
never wore out. 

Ah ! but what said the Canaanites, and the Hivites, 
and the Hittites, and the Perizites, and the Gergash- 
ites, and the Jebusites, whose country we came to 
take away from them ? 

Why, you cut their throats ; and then, you know, 
they said nothing. 

Then why is it that not a single historical vestige 
exists, and no historian in the world has taken the 
least notice of these wonderful events ? 

Why, Sirs, in the name of God, does not Josephus 
tell you, that it was because God Almighty would not 
let 'em take any notice of them ? God, he assures us, 
punished all foreigners who dared to speak of the 
Jewish histories. The historian Theopompus, for only 
designing to mention them in his work, became de- 
ranged for thirty days ; and the tragic poet Theodec- 
tes, was struck blind, for having introduced the names 
of the Jews into one of his tragedies. 

Such has been the early history, or the earliest 
account of any sort that could be given of every na- 
tion under heaven ; in which there is nothing more 
peculiar to the Jews, or peculiarly Jewish, than their 
teeth and beards are Jewish. 

Every nation that hath ever had priests and reli- 



moses. 293 

gion of any sort, have had their Genesis, or fabulous 
history or' their gods ; their Exodus, or fabulous 
history of their men ; and upon those fables, their 
Leviticus, or institutions of priesthood, to hold human 
curiosity in check, and to supply the place of real 
knowledge, by perpetuating and consecrating the 
errors of a barbarous antiquity. 



XVIL-THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS. 



And the patriarchs, moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt : But 
God was with him. 1 — Acts, vii. 9. 



I would summon only the remembrance of those 
who are here, perhaps, on the present occasion, for 
the first time ; and who find me far advanced in a 
science of whose existence they had not heard before, 
to the great principle on which this science is founded. 
And that is a principle which any one who had not 
known what 'the Christian character really is, would 
have thought that a Christian would never have 
quarrelled with ; even none other than the principle 
which holds (and no man living holds it more sincerely 
than I do), that 'All the words of the Lord are pure 
words, even as the silver, which from the earth is 
purified and refined in the fire seven times.' 

Upon this axiom, we conclude that any words 
which are not pure are not the words of the Lord, 
and may and ought to be rejected, as spurious and 
base, wherever found, or under whatever pretences of 
admitting of explanation, or our not properly under- 
standing them, lest their apparent impurity may be 
screened from our criticism, or protected from our 
disgust. 



THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS. 295 

But all the words of the Lord, being of such 
essential holiness and purity, as having undergone, 
or requiring to undergo, a process of criticism as severe 
and trying as a seventh passing through the fire ; 
can any absurdity be more monstrous, than that of 
those who, professing to call the scriptures 'the word 
of God,' would never subject them to any critical 
inquiry at all, nor ever allow themselves to revise or 
to doubt the first impressions which their text had 
made upon them ? 

But behold I show unto you a more excellent 
way : 'The patriarchs moved with envy, sold Joseph 
into Egypt: but God was with him.' 

Would not any man who intended to treat the 
scriptures with the respect which he would show to 
any other work of high antiquity, ask the emergent 
questions — 

1. What are Patriarchs ? 

2. Why moved with envy? Why sell Joseph 
into Egypt! And why and how was God with 
Joseph ? 

To the first of these questions we may be thus 
resolved : The word patriarch occurs in no other 
passage of scripture but this I have quoted, except 
once in the singular form, in the 2nd of the Acts of 
the Apostles, where we have the phrase, the Patriarch 
David; and again in the 7th of the Epistle to the 
Hebrews where is the phrase, the Patriarch Abraham. 
It is nowhere found in the gospels, calling in, as we 
are in reason bound to do, the light afforded to a 
strict adherence to the original Greek ; we find that 
Uarpcapxat ^rjXojgavreg does not mean, the patriarch 
moved with envy, which is a moral sense, and 
certainly a bad one ; but the twinkling, sparkling, 
glowing, effervescing, ardent patriarchs, which is a 
physical sense, and therefore neither good nor bad : 



296 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

But which, if the patriarchs should happen to mean 
any thing of a sparkling and twinkling nature, would, 
without any departure, from the most literal sense, 
present us with a clue to the significancy, — especially 
if it were absolutely sure (as to those who have regu- 
larly attended these lectures, it is sure) that the 
Patriarch Abraham was and is nothing else but a Star, 
even the planet Saturn, and the Patriarch David, 
likely hereafter to be proved to be — no more than a 
Star. And that the word patriarch should primarily 
and originally have reference only to a star or com- 
bination of stars. 

And then the form of speech, which we have 
rendered, they 'sold Joseph into Egypt,' anedovro, is 
still more exactly, they 'gave him over,' which, with- 
out a metaphor, is such an action as might be ascribed 
to these sparkling and glowing patriarchs ; especially 
if Joseph were one of their own sparkling, glowing, 
starry, and patriarchal nature and family, which is 
more than intimated in the phrase — kcll r\v o Qeog fier 
avro — 'But God was with him.' God always being 
believed to be in a very peculiar manner resident in 
every one of the Stars. 

Which probability, as to the real sense, is still 
further enhenced, from the curious fact, that this account 
which St. Stephen gives to the Jewish counsel of the 
history of their supposed ancestors, is very materially 
different from what appears in the Books of Genesis 
and Exodus; and that where those books seem to 
speak of a person, and were so understood by the 
Jewish counsel, the explication of the matter makes 
the person to have been a Star, or a tabernacle — that 
is, a celestial mansion or constellation of Stars. He 
tells them, 'Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, 
and the Stars of your God Remphan.' 

The Tabernacle of Moloch, being most certainly 



THE TWELVE PATRIAECHS. 297 

nothing else than the constellation Ursa-Major, the 
Greater Bear, or the Ass of TypAon, as the constel- 
lation was anciently called : and Moloch being the 
North or Pole Star itself, in the tail of that Bear or 
Ass, round which the whole heavens seem to revolve, 
as upon their pivot or imaginary axis. 

Thus, as the whole heavens seem to ride round 
upon this Northern Ass, the ancients represented the 
God Bacchus as riding in triumph upon an Ass, who 
was their personification of the Sun. 

But in the New Covenant, when, about 2500 
years before our era, the solstitial point was in the 
tribe of Issachar — that is, in the constellation of Can- 
cer : there being in the domicile of that sign the two 
Stars called the Asses, our Christian allegorists have 
represented our Bacchus, as riding in triumph upon 
two asses. Even upon an ass, and a colt, the foal of 
an ass : they have set him, like Mr. Ducrow, at Ast- 
ley's theatre, astraddle across 'em both, the boys and 
girls crying out, Hosanna ! While Bacchus himself 
was so much tickled by the drollery of his situation, 
that he said, t If these should hold their peace, I tell 
you that the very stones would cry out.' 

But if words may deceive us, actions can hardly 
do so : and we have happily, in the present case, an 
account of the action of St. Stephen, in illustration 
of what his words referred to. 

For, all the while that he was delivering this strange 
rhapsody of a discourse, about patriarchs and taber- 
nacles, and angels, and God in the bush, not a word 
of which, from beginning to end, had the least possi- 
ble reference to any apparently existing circumstances 
upon earth, — we are told, that 4 He being full of the 
Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly unto heaven?' 

And what could he be looking there for ? but for 
his text in that true word of God, spread out to the 

13* 



298 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

study of all nations, in the sparkling canopy of the 
visible heavens : to whose stars and groups of stars 
he was giving names and titles ; and whose real and 
visible phenomena of rising and setting, he was de- 
scribing as a sort of imaginary history : just as you 
would yourself describe them, and could find no other 
way of doing so, to the imagination of those whom 
you were endeavouring to instruct in the first princi- 
ples of astronomy. 

As you would say, f See there in the east, how 
yonder group of stars is rising, as it were, out of the 
sea, that looks so red with the reflection of the Sun's 
rays, that you may call it the lied Sea : and that you 
may know the group again, mark yon bright Star that 
seems to lead them, and call him Moses. And there 
is one, not quite so bright, who shall be his brother 
Aaron ; and there's a sister for them, that beautiful 
pale looking Star, that seems to rise out of the froth 
of the sea, which makes her look so white — that is, 
Miriam, she has got the leprosy, — and is the Venus 
Anaduomene of the Pagan, and the Virgin Mary of 
the Christian fable.' 

And thus, you see, would the whole hieroglyphi- 
cal history inevitably follow upon the natural workings 
of imagination. The vanity and pride of ignorance 
that had once been so entertained with the illustra- 
tion, would never brook the being put back to the 
sober sense of the argument. The Story was too 
pretty not to be true : it would spoil it to suppose that 
it was not true. 

'As no account has been kept, nor could have been 
kept of the millions of the races of squeeling savages, 
ourangoutangs and wild men of the woods, who were 
the ancestors of the human race, these astronomical 
illustrations supplied the place of history : each indi- 
vidual was believed to have a particular star or group 



THE TWELVE PATRIAKCHS. 299 

of stars, that had presided over his nativity, and that 
would continue over him a guardian protection through 
all his life, and receive him into his own bright sphere 
of happiness and glory after death. 

Hence the notion of guardian angels. The ex- 
pression, my stars ! was synonymous with my God! 
my Father! my protector? 

And Christ promises that to him who overcometh, 
he will give him the morning Star — that is, I hope, 
not merely to scorch his fingers with, by putting it 
into his pocket, but to become his tutelary or pro- 
tecting genius. 

A feeling of relationship, and a sentiment of grati- 
tude and piety, grew on the pleasing fiction, and it 
became duty and virtue not to suffer themselves to be 
disabused of the impressions the fiction had made 
upon them. 

Though there was no confirmatory document, and 
no history whatever has made the least mention of 
any of these personages, or their adventures, yet there 
was no counter or contradictory history, — nobody 
could prove the negative. And as they must have 
had some ancestors, or been descended from somebody 
or something, why might not the stars have been their 
forefathers, or be believed to contain the genii or 
souls of their fathers, and why might not the curious 
and entertaining illustrations which the astronomical 
priests gave of the starry heavens be the real history 
(in the absence of all other history) of the progenitors 
of mankind ? 

Thus were the stars their fathers ; and thus were 
the phenomena which the priests described in relation 
to the stars supposed to be the real history of what 
had occurred to those from whom they believed them- 
selves to have descended. The names which the 
priests gave to distinguish one star from another, 



300 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

passed for the names of their particular ancestors : 
while the priests, by their manner of turning their 
eyes up, and like St, Stephen gazing steadfastly into 
heaven all the while that they were discoursing about 
these imagined fathers of mankind, gave a sufficient 
hint to those who had wit enough to look to actions 
rather than words, — as to what the real nature of 
those fathers was, and where the text of their marvel- 
lous history was to be found. 

Of which St. Paul, ever and anon, gives us the 
broadest hints that ever were in the world ; and 
which, if experience had not shown that the stupidity 
of the religious world is absolutely infinite, one would 
have thought that stupidity itself could not have mis- 
taken ; as he says, ' Set your affections on things 
above' — that is, to be sure, upon the stars which you 
see so high above your heads : and, ' Our conversa- 
tion is in the heavens,' — that is, all that we discourse 
about, is the science of astronomy: and, 'Moreover, 
brethren, I would not have you ignorant how that all 
our fathers were under the cloud." 

Why, to be sure, and O' God's name, they were 
under the cloud, — and of a cloudy night you cannot 
see any of them. 

'And all passed through the sea, and were all 
baptized unto Moses, in the cloud and in the sea.' 

The very pha3nomena, which we see ourselves, 
and could hardly describe in any other language as 
occurring to the stars, which are continually baptized, 
or dipt, or ducking behind the cloud, as the cloud 
passes over them, and ducking in right earnest, as 
we see them set, or go down behind the waves of the 
western ocean. 

And as the stars, in this hieroglyphical language, 
are so evidently meant — and all that is meant — by 
our Fathers or Patres, we have the clue in our hands 



THE TWELVE PATRIAECHS. 301 

to lead us to the discovery, as to who were the Pa- 
triarkai or pre-eminent and great arch-fathers, or 
patriarchs in the system, in the never-to-be-forgotten 
essentiality of the system, that they were exactly 
twelve of them, nor more nor fewer, answering exactly 
to the number of the twelve signs of the Zodiac — 
that is, those twelve groups of stars which lie in the 
course which the sun appears to pass through in the 
heavens in that annual revolution which constitutes 
the twelve months of the year. 

These groups of stars were distinguished from 
each other, and depicted as supposed to fall within 
the outline of such imaginary figures, as you see de- 
lineated on the concave of this dome. And the figures 
and names given to them founded on reasons of some 
hieroglyphical significancy, or some association of idea, 
which may perhaps now be entirely lost, has remained 
the same from before all records of the thoughts or 
devices of man, there being no language, nor any 
trace of the existence of men upon earth, among whom 
this division of the Sun's annual course through these 
twelve groups of Stars, was not the same as it is with 
us, and the names and figures of the groups, the 
same too. 

An imaginary character and imaginary history 
were referred to these groups, analogous to the char- 
acter and history of nature pending that portion of 
the year, during which the Sun appears to be in that 
part of the heavens over which the Stars that make 
up that group spread themselves. 

And the sun itself, by the ordinary metonymy of 
language, took the name and character, and was the 
imagined genius of each of these groups of stars, pend- 
ing the period of time that he appeared to be pass- 
ing through it. And as the Sun was always the Su- 
preme God, so each of these signs of the Zodiac were 



302 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

all of them Gods in their turns: so spoken of, so 
adored and worshipped, and so one or other adopted 
by different nations, as the Great Father or Patriarch, 
from which they imagined themselves to be de- 
scended. 

While the very name of tribes, or twelve tribes, is 
as technically astronomical a term as the name of the 
twelve signs of the Zodiac itself, — the word tribe 
actually meaning, and never having had any other 
meaning than a path or course, such as that of the 
Sun through the signs of the Zodiac actually is. So 
the word Ilarf/p, meant not a father or parent. It 
was a religious term, imported from Egypt, the same 
as Pator and Patora, the Amonian name of the Sun, 
whose priests were called Petor or Pator, in honor of 
the Sun ; and in their religious ceremonies they danced 
round a large fire, in representation of the Sun in the 
visible heavens. 

Hence the name of Petee, the chief of the apos- 
tles of Christ, and the name Patriarchs, or most dis- 
tinguished Peters given to the twelve tribes of Israel 
— that is, the twelve signs of the Zodiac, which really 
do seem to dance round the Sun in the annual revolu- 
tion of the heavens. 

So the word apostle, anoaroXoi,, which Greek is a 
name which never could have been given by any per- 
son of Jewish education and habits to persons whom 
he had sent on an errand or embassy of any character, 
but is directly the most obvious astronomical term 
for the twelve months, as sent forth, or given to the 
world, by the Sun, in his annual tribe, or course 
through those signs. Hence that great mystagogue, 
St. Paul, talks so much about the signs of an apostle. 
And the Jesus of the gospel speaks of the time when 
the Sun shall be darkened, as it is in the dark days 
of winter, — 'and then shall appear the sign of the Son 



THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS. 303 

of Man in heaven.' Matthew 24. And there is the 
sign of the Son of Man in heaven, who is none other 
than the Aquarius of the Zodiac. But as if this hint 
as to the astronomical signihcancy of the whole gos- 
pel were not plain enough, the same astronomical 
priest further explains himself : ' A wicked and adul- 
terous generation seeketh after a sign from heaven, and 
there shall be no sign given to them, but the sign of 
the prophet Jonas.' And there is the sign of the 
prophet Jonas, in that self-same Son of Man, the first 
sign of the Zodiac, whose very name of Jonas, or Ja- 
nus, is retained to this day, in our name of the month 
January. 

As if the indignant teacher, disgusted at the egre- 
gious stupidity of his audience, had said, or meant to 
say : An' if ye be so dull as not to understand the 
sign of the prophet Jonas, the Devil may teach you 
the eleven other signs. 

Now if the names and characters of the twelve 
tribes of Israel, whom St. Stephen calls the twelve 
patriarchs, shall actually prove to answer to the phy- 
sical phasnomena of the twelve signs of the Zodiac : 
the demonstration of their identity will be complete : 
the proof that the apparent history of the Book of 
Genesis is an hieroglyphical picture of the phenomena 
of nature, will be absolute ; it will be fatuity and ig- 
norance alone, that will ever more imagine that any 
such persons ever really existed, or that a word of 
historical reality was ever intended. To this proof 
then now we tend. See the truly sublime and mag- 
nificent passage of the 49th of Genesis : ' Gather your- 
selves together, and hear, ye sons of Jacob, and hear- 
ken unto Israel your father.' 

1. ' Eeuben, thou art my first born, my might, 
and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of 



304 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

dignity, and the excellency of power: unstable as 
water, thou shalt not excel.' 

Here is Aquarius, with his never-to-be-mistaken 
monogram, the two zigzag lines which represent the 
unsteady or wavy surface of water, to which he is 
compared. He is the first of the four royal signs, 
the beginning of the Sun's strength, the first month 
of the year. The Janus of Paganism, the St. Peter 
of the apostles, the St. Mark of the evangelists, whose 
gospel is the shortest as the days are shortest in 
January. 

2. ' Simeon and Levi are brethren, instruments 
of cruelty are in their habitation.' 

These two, you see, are united, as are the two 
Fishes of the month February : the instruments of 
fishing-nets, hooks, spears, and harpoons, are neces- 
sarily associated with the business of fishing, and 
therefore represented in the domicile or part of the 
heavens, assigned to this constellation. 

4 But I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them 
in Israel,' says the inspired speaker, forgetting that he 
is speaking in the character of Israel himself. 

I beseech ye, Sirs, to cast your eyes on the celes- 
tial globe, and see if that is not the precise definition 
of the Fishes of the Zodiac, which are so scattered 
that the one, which is a John Dory, reaches the pitcher 
of Aquarius, and the other a Cod-fish, is on the shoul- 
der of Andromeda. 

The twelve Apostles, however, who are but an- 
other edition of the twelve Patriarchs, were all of them 
supposed to be fishermen, and therefore literally have 
the scaly character of Simeon and Levi scattered and 
divided among them. 

And Peter, the first of the Apostles that cry, 'I 
go a fishing,' actually gets the name of Simeon, the 
first of the fish, superadded to his name of Peter, as Levi 



THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS. 305 

was another name of the evangelist Matthew. And 
the twelve signs that make up the whole band of the 
Zodiac, were called fishermen, because of that natural 
appearance which they have, of going down or setting in 
the sea, from which imagination supposed them to de- 
rive their nourishment. 

3. ' Judah is a Lion's whelp, he stooped down, he 
couched as a Lion, and as an Old Lion. Who shall 
rouse him up ?' 

Here is the undoubted Lion of the tribe of Judah, 
the name given to Jesus Christ in the Apocalypse, the 
Leo of the month of July in the Zodiac, and the el- 
eon, God, the Sun, of the Egyptian language, from 
which our English word Lion is derived, and the Old 
Lion of the Zodiac was always rspresented as a Lion 
couchant, or stooping down. 

4. Ephraim, ommitted in the blessing of Jacob, 
but supplied in that of Moses, in the 33rd of Deuter- 
onomy : ' His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, 
and his horns are like the horns of unicorns.' Sama- 
ria was the capital of the tribe of Ephraim, and thy 
Calf, O Samaria ! is the prophetic designation of 
the tribe of Ephraim, as that same calf is the Taurus 
of the month of April, — Ephraim literally signifying 
that which brings forth fruit, or grows, or causes to 
grow. 

5. ' Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder 
in the path thut biteth the horses' heels.' This Ceras- 
tus, Serpent, or adder that biteth the horses' heels, is 
the Scorpion of October, which you see so near the 
heels of the horse of November, and to which answer 
the Eagle, or Vulture, which rises at the same moment 
with the Scorpion, and is therefore called its parona- 
tellon : the Scorpion you see is found as the sign of 
October, the first of the winter months, in which the 
Sun sinks below the Equator, and is therefore said to 



306 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

descend into the invisible regions or Hades: this 
month, then, is the place of the gates of Hell, within 
which is that Scorpion, the worm which never dieth, 
as Hades itself, though translated Hell, is literally 
ad-es, the Lord, the Fire, the Sun itself, the fire 
which never shall be quenched. 

But the Eagle, the Paronatellon of the Scorpion, 
was, say the ancient astronomers, for mystical reasons, 
substituted in the place of the Scorpion, in the 
pavilion of the tribe of Dan, and was the insignia or 
armorial bearing on the banner of Dan. 

Thus the four royal tribes, Reuben, Ephraim, 
Judah, and Dan are the unquestionable genii of the 
four seasons of the year, Winter, Spring, Summer, 
and Autumn. And their insignia or hieroglyphical 
signs, the Man of Reuben, or Aquarius, the Bull or 
Bull-calf of Ephraim, the Lion of Judah, and the 
Eagle of Dan, are to this day the accompanying symbols 
of the four evangelists, Mark, Mathew, Luke, and 
John, as you will see them in this same arrangement, 
on the western pediment of St. Paul's Cathedral, and 
as they have been presented in all the painted windows 
and altar-pieces of all the ancient religious edifices in 
Christendom. 

6. 'Zebulon shall dwell at the Haven of the sea, 
and he shall be for an haven of ships.' 

Here is the characteristic of the Capricornus of 
December, the Goat, who in all the ancient planispheres 
was represented with the tail of a fish, and. by the 
ancient astronomers, called the son of Neptune. 

7. Issachar is a strong ass, couching down between 
two burdens, and in the domicile or department of the 
heavens, assigned to the Cancer, the Crab of June, the 
Hebrew name for which month is Thomas, the very 
name of the stupid apostle, that had half a mind to 
go back again, are the two stars called the Asses, even 



THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS. 307 

that very ass, and the colt, the foal of an ass, upon 
which Jesus Christ rode in triumph into Jeru- 
salem. 

8. 'Gad, a troop shall overcome him : but he shall 
overcome at the last.' 

Here is Aries, the Ram of March, whose place in 
the heavens is in the domicile of the planet Mars, the 
Lord of Hosts, whom the prophecy describes as a 
warrior, who is first to be conquered, and afterwards 
to be himself the conqueror, as Jesus Christ, who is 
the Ram or Lamb of God — that is, the Lamb of Gad, 
for our English word God is actually derived from Gad, 
the name of this tribe of Israel, which triumphs on the 
cross — that is, by crossing the Equator at the point 
of the Vernal Equinox. And as the month of March 
is said to come in like a lion, but to go out like a 
Lamb, beginning in blustering winds and storms, and 
ending in the mild and genial zephyrs of the spring. 

9. * And of Asher, he said, ' Let Asher be bless- 
ed with children, let them be acceptable to his breth- 
ren, let him dip his foot in oil.' Deuteronomy 33. 

And there are the brethren, the children, the 
twins, the Gemini of May, that delightful month, 
when the fresh grass so much improves the milk and 
butter, that the power of poetry could hardly have 
devised a more characteristic description than that of 
the sacred song, he shall dip his foot in oil, his bread 
shall be fat, and he shall yield royal dainties. 

10. ' Naphtali is a hind let loose : he giveth good- 
ly words :' and here have we that deeply couched 
enigma, of the Virgin of August, whose place in the 
heavens is in the domicile of the planet Mercury, the 
God of Eloquence, as the hand of the Zodiac Virgin 
was represented as holding the Balance of Justice, in 
pleading for which, the power of eloquence and of 



308 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

godly words has its most distinguished and peculiar 
province. 

But the blessing of Moses on his tribe, determines 
its identity with the month of August, beyond all 
emergence of a doubt. ' O Napthali, satisfied with 
favor, and full with the blessing of the Lord.' 

11. 'Joseph is a fruitful bough, the archers have 
sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him ; 
but his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his 
hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty 
God of Jacob.' 

Is it possible to mistake the hieroglyph for the 
month of November, Sagittarius, the Archer, the Ge- 
nius of the seasons for hunting, who is flying as if he 
had been shot, while he is shooting as he flies. 

12. ■ Benjamin shall raven as a wolf: in the morn- 
ing he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall 
divide the spoil.' 

The constellation Sagittarius in the Zodiac, imme- 
diately precedes the celestial Wolf, which hardly falls 
within the Zodiac. But the character of ravening as 
a Wolf, indicates the hungry and black character of 
the deep winter, and the devouring the prey in the 
morning, and dividing the spoil at night, the extreme 
shortness of the days at that season of the year. 

Jacob, on his death-bed, is represented as having 
adopted the two sons of Joseph, Ephraim and Manas- 
seh, and to have made a tribe of each of them, which 
would have made the number thirteen to the dozen. 

But the astronomical error which this adoption 
would have induced, is corrected by Moses throwing 
out Levi, and putting Manasseh in his place, and 
giving Levi a place in the priesthood instead : 

' Wherefore Levi hath no part nor inheritance with 
his brethren: the Lord is his inheritance.' 

And we actually find the same error with respect 



THE TWELVE PATKIAECHS. 309 

to the same name, and the same correction of that error 
in the same way, and for the same reason, in the lists 
of the names of the twelve apostles, where the Levi of 
the first list is thrown out of the second, and adopted 
into the priesthood instead : and Levi is made the 
same as Matthew the publican, or public character, 
and the Genius of the word of God, or gospel, which 
is said to be according to Saint Matthew. 

Thus have we found the twelve patriarchs or tribes 
of Israel each severally corresponding to its respective 
type in the twelve signs of the Zodiac : as the twelve 
great Gods of the Pagan mythology, and the twelve 
Apostles of the gospel do, in like manner, most wonder- 
fully correspond to the same great Archetypes. 

When we look into the derivative meaning of those 
words, Patriarchs, Types, Apostles, we find them 
absolutely to be astronomical terms, and to present 
none other than an astronomical sense and signi- 
ficancy. 

When we look into the derivative or first sense 
of all the terms, and phrases, and periphrases, by 
which divine revelation is spoken of, we find that first 
sense is absolutely an astronomical one, and we are 
obliged to strain and transpose, and do no small violence 
to the first principles of language to make them bear 
any other than an astronomical sense. Why are our 
holy books called respectively the Old and the New 
Covenants. What are Covenants or putting together, 
but puttings together of the stars ? Why is the whole 
system called the Dispensation of the fulness of times, 
but as being the scientific making up of certain astro- 
nomical circles or periods of time ? Why is it the 
wisdom from above? Why is our God a consuming 
fire ? Why is our Christ the Day Star from on high ? 
Why is our Jesus 'the same yesterday, to day, and 



310 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUKES. 

for ever,' but that the Sun it is who is 'the same 
yesterday, to day, and for ever ?' 

All who have treated of divine matters, says 
Clemens Alexandrinus ; the barbarous nations as well 
as the Greeks, have hid the principles of things, and 
delivered down the truth enigmatically, by signs, and 
symbols, and allegories, and metaphors. 

Among the arts and mysteries which Philo, the 
Jew, says Moses, learnt from his masters, the Egyptians, 
was that of philosophy, by symbols, hieroglyphics, 
and marks of animals. 

When we bow with submission, or are pleased to 
bow to the authority claimed for the sacred text, and 
take the text as the only source of information and of 
truth upon the matter, that authority also confirms the 
same conclusion. 

If the children of Israel, the tribes, the patriarchs, 
the apostles, were creatures of this earth, what became 
of them ? If they had ever trodden on our globe, why 
are they off it like the sparks off of burnt tinder ? 

Or with what right or reason is it, that any one 
professing to believe the scriptures to be the word of 
God, and unable from any other source to determine 
who or what the patriarchs of the Old, or the apostles 
of the New Testament were, should resist the deter- 
mination which, if the scriptures be the word of God, 
God himself has given, 'They serve unto the example 
and shadow of heavenly things.' Heb. viii. 5. 

And I, Sirs, have shown you what those heavenly 
things are ; unto whose example and shadow they do 
serve, and correspond as exactly as the bright orbs of 
heaven to their reflecting figures upon the glassy 
bosom of the lake ; as the wax to the seal that has 
been set upon it. 



XVHL-WHO IS THE LORD 



Paet I. 



" And Pharaoh said, Wlio is the Lord, that 1 should obey his voice, 
to let Israel go? 1 know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel 
go." — Exodus, v, 2. 



There is something so delightful in the mere 
sound of thorough good sense, that it gives eloquence 
to any sort of language in which it may be uttered : 
it is delightful to the mind, and soothing to the heart, 
wherever heard. Its refreshing cadence falls on the 
grateful ear, where we meet it in our Bibles, like the 
note of a nightingale in an aviary of peacocks, hawks, 
and vultures. 

It is on the evidence of this spontaneous accord- 
ance of the mind to the impulse of reason, that we are 
authorized in concluding that man, though not truly 
defined as a rational being, is yet a being capable of 
becoming rational. And the apology for the deficiency 
of intellect in men, which evidence supports, and calm 
reflection admits, is, that in reality so very little of 
good sense has ever been set before them. And 
those who have possessed this rare commodity, dis- 
couraged by the contrast of surrounding imbecility, 



312 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

have been too often disposed to play the monk ; to hold 
their intellectual ascendency as a monopoly, and rather 
to thicken the obscurity and fortify the ignorance of their 
fellow men, than to run a hazard of inconvenience to 
themselves, by generous exertions to remove it. 

There is nothing peculiarly poetical, no grandeur 
of point, no antithesis, no rhythmus, and rather a 
startling opposition to all the modes of persuasion, 
and habits of association, among good Christian peo- 
ple, in this retort of the hard-hearted Pharaoh, to the 
messengers and ministers of the God of Israel. Yet 
scarce a Christian could perpend this answer, without 
feeling an instant consciousness of the majesty of 
superior good sense, and a disposition to lose his an- 
ger in his admiration. Such an answer became a man: 
and we rather envy than deplore the fate of Pharaoh, 
when we are told that ' the Lord hardened Pharaoh's 
heart,' and we find him giving so noble a proof that 
he was indeed not quite so soft as his friends Moses 
and Aaron wished to have found him. 

As far as I shall trouble you with the machinery 
of the tale, it is enough to recollect, that the parsons 
had been for playing off their old canting everlasting 
trick of ' Thus saith the Lord ;' that mystical talisma- 
nic Abracadabra, that moulds the shivering fools and 
knaves of priestcraft to the purposes of whatever 
knave can say, ' Thus saith the Lord,' the loudest, and 
look the savagest at it. It is that most wicked, most 
villainous, and most mischievous 'Thus saith the 
Lord,' to whose accursed incantation may be ascribed, 
in the sum total, all the miseries and vices, and all 
the degradation and imbecility of mankind. 

The withering fascination poured first upon the ear 
of unresisting infancy, like the mildewed air doth blight 
the germ of reason, and hath inflicted a palsy on the 
mind, so grievous, so perpetual, as never more to per- 



WHO IS THE LOED ? 313 

mit the mind to grow up to the acquisition of its na- 
tural functions ; and thousands and millions of crea- 
tures who have been called rational, but further off 
from being so than dogs and rats, have stolen their 
way from the cradle to the grave, with the sound of 
* Thus saith the Lord' in their ears, without wit enough 
in their brains, or curiosity enough in their nature, to 
ask the question, ' Who is the Lord ?' 

The very cadence of such a question in a Christian 
ear would sound like blasphemy ! Who but an infi- 
del would have ever thought of asking it ? Who but 
an infidel would find courage enough in this respect 
to say bo to a goose, and undertake to answer it ? 

Yet so essentially connected is the moral with the 
intellectual character ; so impossible is it that the 
heart should go wrong where the understanding has 
been set right, that could we suppose such a 
character as Pharaoh to have existed, and such 
an answer, under such circumstances, to have been 
given, we should feel in ourselves an incongruity and 
heterogeneity in the supposition that the man who gave 
it could possibly have been a tyrant and oppressor, or 
in any respect wanting of the virtues which ever wait 
on reason. 

' Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice, 
to let Israel go ? I know not the Lord, neither will I 
let Israel go !' There's a sort of fine fellow cadence, 
'ith the very cadence of it ! The man who could so 
express himself wanted not a diadem to make him 
every inch a king: and even in the squalors of pover- 
ty, would- have been as intellectually superior to the 
herd of say-belief idiots, as the mighty oak of the 
forest to the funguses and weeds that fester round its 
roots. 

For what is the perfection of virtue, but the influ> 

14 



314 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

ential governing, and ever present determination of 
the mind, never to do any thing without a reason. 

What is the perfection of reason, but that manly 
strength of mind, that will never be put off with any 
thing like a ' Thus saith the Lord' for a reason. 

But these perfections are combined in this most 
admirable apothegm of the great Egyptian, 'Who is 
the Lord, that I should obey his voice, to let Israel 
go!' Could that question have been answered, the 
suit had been obtained. But any thing but that for 
the parsons ! The ambassadors of Omnipotence could 
not answer the fair challenge, ' Show me your creden- 
tials!' and their embassy, therefore, was abortive. 

The conclusion became the evidence, ' I know not 
the Lord, and you cannot introduce me to him. I 
have no doubt that he's a gentleman. Good morning 
to your reverences.' 

I have done with the allegorical story, in deriving 
from it as a mere motto to my present purpose, the 
question, Who is the Lord? A question which I 
propound to sift so entirely, as shall ensure to you a 
satisfaction worthy of your patience. 

Who is the Lord ? the Lord ? Yahouh, in He- 
brew ; Eoru, in Persic ; Alia, in Arabic ; Theuth, 
Egyptic ; Adod, in Chaldaic ; Adad, in Syriac ; 
o Kvptog, in Greek ; Dominus, in Latin ; JOEternel, 
in French ; the Lord, in English ; with all its vocabu- 
lary of periphrases. 

1. The Aheyhe asher Ahheyho,* of the Hebrew. 

2. Eyo> Ei7]i o o)v, I am the being, of the Septua- 
gint Greek. 

3. The 'Ecofiac Eao/zat, Twill be, I will be of the 
versions of Aquila and Theodotion. 

4. The Sum qui Sum, I am who I am, of the 
vulgate Latin. 

* EIEH. 



WHO IS THE LORD? 315 

5. The Sono colui che sono, I am that which 1 
am, of the Italian of Diodati. 

6. The Je suis, celui qui est, I am he who is, of 
the French of Le Gros. 

7. The Je serais, car Je Serai, I shall be for I 
shall be, of Le Clerc. 

8. The ego is ero, qui olim futurus sum, I will 
be he who hereafter am about to be, of Houbigant. 

9. The Ero qui ero, I shall be who I shall be, 
of Rosenmuller. 

10. The Great I am, of the Protestant Dr. 
Watts. 

11. The no less Great I am, because I am, of the 
Catholic Doctor Geddes. 

12. The I am that 1 am, of our common version ; 
and 

13. The Tetragrammaton, or mystical four let- 
ters, set in a triangle, surrounded by a circle of gol- 
den rays upon our Christian altar-pieces, but always 
on the east side of the edifice, and called by the vul- 
gar, Jehovah. 

It is to be observed, moreover, with respect to the 
vulgar among ourselves, that the name the Lord, is a 
much greater favorite, and familiar of their utterance, 
than God, or the Almighty, or any other supposed 
synonyme for the same imagination. 

It is with the very lowest and meanest of the peo- 
ple (low and mean in understanding, as well as in 
grade in society, and among the wilder and more our- 
ang-outangish sort of fanatics), that the Lord entirely 
carries the day against the God, and the Almighty, 
of persons of education and good breeding : and of 
this difference, — all their hymns, prayers, preachings, 
religious tracts, and published discourses, present un- 
equivocal evidence. 

Compare the epithets for Deity, which you should 



316 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

find in a sermon delivered before the Court, or either 
of our Universities, with the slang of a Methodist 
chape'l, and you would find the difference as great as 
between any two forms of the ancient Pagan idolatry. 

Men, indeed, cannot rise above the ideas which 
their situations force upon them. They can have no 
other ideas than such as take their type wholly from 
the impressions which their circumstances make upon 
them. And hence it is, that the term the Lord, in- 
separably associated as it is with its correlative terms, 
servant, vassal, understrapper, hireling, beggar, 
and slave, has a direct homogeneity and correspon- 
dence to the ideas of persons of a mean and servile 
condition. 

The saints have knowledge enough of human na- 
ture, to be content with sticking their low-life blessed 
Lord, and O Lord Jesus Christ collects, in their 
prayer books for hospitals, goals, and charity schools, 
while they have recourse to their triangles, and doves, 
and golden rays, to gild the pill for the swallowing of 
aristocratic piety : and our Saviour, and the Almighty, 
is the utmost extent of condescension to be claimed 
from persons of good breeding and polite education. 

Could the Society for Promoting Christian 
Knowledge have primed Moses and Aaron for their 
errand to King Pharaoh, they'd have made a better 
hit of it, than by saying any thing to him about the 
Lord, and not have subjected 'themselves to be an- 
swered, as they might be sure a gentlemen would 
answer them, « Who is the Lord? I hnow not the 
Lord. Go preach to the slaves and idiots who will 
submit to be be-Lorded and be-priested ; ye carry 
no point with me, with your * Thus saith the Lord.' 
And, indeed, Pharaoh had more than half-a-dozen bits 
of very good and wholesome scripture on his side, as 
he might have quoted either Isaiah, Jeremiah, or 



WHO IS THE LOED? 317 

Ezekiel. 'For thus saith the Lord, The prophets 
prophecy falsely, they lie unto thee, they do it to get 
dishonest gain, and they prophecy unto you a false 
vision, and a thing of naught, and the deceit of their 
own heart. And they say, Thus saith the Lord, when 
the Lord hath not said it.' But so it falls out, that 
whenever there happens to be a bit of downright good 
sense and honest truth in their Bibles, you'll always 
find that those are the passages which Christians never 
care to remember. 

We must be heedful, never to confound the Lord 
with God. There is no necessary connection between 
them. They are NOT synonymus nor convertible 
terms, — so that the one might be used indifferently 
for the other. But far from it, very far. The one is 
particular, the other general', as we say with pro- 
priety, THE Lord, meaning particularly the figment 
with whom I am now to bring you acquainted, — but 
could hardly say the God. So that the compound 
epithet, the Lord- God, is a syncopation, or abbreviated 
phrase, of which the filling up is i The Lord, who is a 
God.' For while all nations had their Gods, individ- 
ual nations, sects, and clans, have ever had their par- 
ticular conceits to which they adhered, subordinate to 
the general notion. So that it seemed but a fair bar- 
gain which Jeptha proposed to the King of the child- 
ren of Amnion : ' Wilt not thou possess that which 
Chemosh thy God giveth thee to possess ? So whom- 
soever the Lord our God shall drive out from before 
us, them will we possess.' Judges, xi. 24. 

Here we see, that Chemosh — that is, the literal 
Hebrew for the Sun, is synonymus with Ammon, as 
each nation called themselves the children of the Planet 
under whose protection they placed themselves : but 
God was the general term. 

Indeed, the bargain was not unfrequently pro- 



318 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

pounded to the particular conceit or tutelary genius, 
under whose patronage they put themselves, that he 
should grant them success in war, and comply with 
their request, as the condition of his being their God, 
and under penalty of being turned away. So Jacob 
made his covenant and agreement upon the specific 
terms, ' If thou wilt keep me in this way that I go, 
and wilt give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, 
so that I come again to my father's house in peace, 
then shall the Lord be my God, and of all that thou 
shalt give me, I will surely give the tenth to thee.' 
Genesis 28. And there the chapter ends, leaving it 
to our own imaginations to fill up the evidently 
implied alternative of the covenant, ' But if I get any 
bad bread, or have any sort of ill-luck under your 
divine providence, look ye, my Lord God, never 
trust me if I don't send your Godship packing, and 
try if I cannot strike a better bargain with the other 
gentleman.' 

Notwithstanding this ridiculous grossness of fa- 
miliarity with their notion of the Lord, which appears 
in every page of the sacred text, our modern Jews, 
who claim a peculiar property in the Old Testament 
(to which they have no right or title at all), would 
cheat the world into a notion that it is only from ex- 
cess of reverence, and from an overwhelming awe and 
veneration to be sure of the divine name, that they 
substitute the word, Adon gnaw-ye, their utter- 
ance of the word Adonis, the name of the Pagan 
God, the Son of Venus. The name Adon, or Ado- 
neus, being the same as Baal, Balseme?i, or Bel, and 
literally signifying the Lord, with its pronoun suffix 
Adonai literally our Lord, the name common to Ju- 
piter, Bacchus, Pluto, Apollo, iEsculapius, Hercules, 
Osiris, and all the grand personifications of the Sun, 
Yet the name of Adonis, is found in the sacred writ. 



WHO IS THE LORD? 319 

ings, as distinctly different from that, which our trans- 
lators have rendered the Lord : as in that irost marked 
and memorable passage, the first of the 110th Psalm: 
' The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou on my right 
hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.' 

Nam Yahouh Le AdonaiSheb le yemini od ashut 
aibike hedem le regelike. 

~EtlTT£V O KvpLOg, TCJ flG). Ixx. 

And the mystical tetragrammaton, or name of 
four letters, or two syllables, Yahouh, which we ab- 
surdly pronounce Jehovah, is found in the 68th 
Psalm, written but with two letters, and necessarily 
requiring to be uttered but as one syllable, Yah Jah, 
or Jack, where certainly no irreverence is meant by 
that seemingly strange abbreviation. 

1 Sing unto God, — sing praises to his name. Ex- 
tol him that rideth upon the heavens by his name Jah, 
and rejoice before him.'* 

The attribute of ' riding upon the heavens,' is so 
peculiar, so distinctly marked, so incapable of being 
strained from its one and only apparent significancy, 
that nothing but that obdurate stupidity which shuts 
out light, and would say to itself, l I will not see the 
Sun,' could cause any man to mistake as to what that 
significancy must have been. 

And this abbreviation of the name of Jehovah, into 
Jah, as peculiarly applied to him ' wfiD rideth upon 
the heavens' — that is, the Sun, is precisely the same 
as the ^Eolic or Latin abbreviation of the name Solus 
— that is, the Alone, or the one by himself, into Sol — 

* So the Spaniards dropt the first letter or syllable of the Syriac 
Adon, and formed their word Don or Lord as a title of nobility ; 
and the English dropt the first of the Chaldee, Adod, and thus 
formed Dod, which was the old Saxon root of the German Gott, 
and of our present English God. 



320 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

that is, the Sun, abbreviated for the same reason, ex- 
pressive of the same significancy, and devised to con- 
fine the utterance, as well as the thought, to the same 
strict notion of unity or oneness. 

The language of the Ode, rises into astonishing 
sublimity in its majesty of emphasis, to exclude all 
possible idea of Trinitarianism, or plurality of any 
sort, in its deity. 

Shemang Yesroile! — Adon-gnaw-ye, Alahinu, 
Adon-gnawey Achad. Deut. vi. 4. 

' Here, O Israel, Adonis our God is our Adonis. 
For the Lord is our defence, the Holy one of Israel 
is our King.' Psalms 89. And that that Holy One 
was none other than the Sun, we have again and 
again impressed, in the repetition of his attribute of 
1 riding on the heavens.' 

4 There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, who 
rideth upon the heaven in thy help, and in his excel- 
lency on the sky. The Eternal God is thy refuge, 
and underneath are the everlasting arms.' Deuteron- 
omy, 33. The everlasting arms being the claws of 
the Crab, which lie immediately underneath the Sun's 
path, as he rides in the heaven, through his highest 
acme of ascendency, on the 21st of June. 

The name of God is merely titular, and an epi- 
thet that may or may not be conjoined to the alone- 
specific and definite idea of the Lord. But the 
Ijord and the Sun are perfectly convertible terms, and 
may be put indifferently the one for the other, in 
every passage in which either of them occurs. 

As in the beautiful astronomical apologue to which 
I shall hereafter engage your studies. i Then, spake 
Joshua unto the Lord in that day, and said, Sun, 
stand thou still upon Gibeon.' 

4 So the Sun stood still, and there was no day like 



WHO IS THE LORD ? 321 

that before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto 
the voice of a man.' Joshua, 10. 

4 God is the Lord, who hath shown us light. Bind 
the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the 
altar.' 

'For behold darkness shall cover the earth, and 
gross darkness the people; but the Lord shall arise 
upon thee, and his brightness shall be seen upon thee.' 

1 Lord, the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and 
Kings to the brightness of thy rising.' 

* Heaven and earth are full of the majesty of thy 
glory.' 

Thus may we, through all the modifications of 
Egyptian, Pagan, and Christian piety, indifferently 
substitute the name of the Sun for that of the Lord, 

They are perfectly synonymous : as to this day 
among ourselves, the Lord's-day, and the Sun's day 
means but one and the same day : Lords-day being 
the technical or cant phrase for that weekly market- 
day of imposture and priestcraft, when honest folks 
are obliged to shut up shop, that other folks may have 
all the custom to themselves, and nothing be bought 
or sold but gospel. 

Our annual festival of Easter, when we gratulate 
the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, from his 
state of declension and decadency, ' to renew the face 
of the earth,' was never held at any other season but 
the spring of the year, and never on any other day 
than on a Sunday, because it is the Sun, and the Sun 
alone, who is our Lord and Savior. 

" Et nunc omnis ager nunc omnis parturit arbos, 
Nunc frondent sylvae, nunc formosissimus asnnus." 

" Now every field, now every tree is green, 
Now genial nature's fairest face is seen." 

14* 



322 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

And 



" Now is the winter of our discontent 
Made glorious summer, by this holy Lord ; 
And all the clouds that lowered upon our house, 
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried." 



The word Easter has been supposed to be 
derived from a Gaelish or ancient British Goddess, 
named Eastre, and analogous to the Egyptian Isis, 
whose mystical death and resurrection had been cele- 
brated in the spring of every year, by our forefathers 
from the days of an infinitely remote antiquity : But 
the East and the Easter is so universal a metonymy 
for the Sun, which rises in the East : hence called the 
Orient or the JRiser, that if we are to entertain a 
doubt as to its being the Sun, and the Sun only, 
whose rising is celebrated on Easter Sunday, the dif- 
ficulty would be to tell where the doubt is to come 
from. Our shrewder divines have expressed their vexa- 
tion, that that awkward word Easter should have found 
its way into the text of our New Testament. ' Herod cast 
Peter into prison, intending after Easter to bring him 
forth to the people.' Acts, 12. But Peter made his 
escape out of that prison in such a hurry as to leave 
one of his keys behind him. 

But as the name of the Lord, in a religious sense, 
in all interpretations which it hath ever borne, among 
all people, nations, and languages, and in all ages in 
which religion of any character hath been known to 
exist, always referred to the Sun : so, too the term 
Savior, so essentially connected with it, was ever the 
specific and distinctive epithet of all the personifica- 
tions of the Sun ; and the Savior and our Blessed 
Savior, and the Lord and Savior, were the epithets of 
Apollo, Bacchus, Adonis, iEsculapius, Hercules, 



WHO IS THE LORD? 323 

Osiris, and all other emblems, whose type and signi- 
fieancy was the Sun : and Zcjttjp, the Savior, sepa- 
rately from any name whatever, never signified any 
thing else but the Sun. No two words ever uttered 
by the torgue of man were ever more perfectly syno- 
nymous than the Sun and the Savior. 

It is but a forlorn and desperate flinging for a 
desperate cause, to set up a conceit of Pagan India, 
Egypt, Greece, and Rome, having possibly derived 
some of their theological notions and forms of expres- 
sion from corrupted fragments of primitive tradition, 
or scattered rags and tatters of salvation, which the 
wind had blown to them out of the old clothes bag. 
When we have evidence at hand, absolutely fatal to 
such a pretence, and must shut up forever all record, 
and all means of record of what the world has been 
before we came into it, if such a pretence is any longer 
to be pronounced respectable. 

In the most extensive numismatic work, the most 
careful collection of medals in the world, that of Mon- 
sieur Mionet, which presents an exhibition of all the 
most ancient medals and coins which have been pre- 
served to human curiosity, where there are thousands 
of Greek, Armenian, Persian, Egyptian, and Phoeni- 
cian medals, going back to a very high antiquity, there 
is not one among them that appertains to an Israelit- 
ish nation, to its theocracy, or to its government :* 
not one to give a feature of history to their sacred le- 
gends, or to make it seem probable that either their 
altars or their thrones, their priesthood or their kings, 

* Dans l'ouvrage numismatique le plus soigne qu'on connaisse, 
celui de M. Mionet, oil Ton trouve des milliers de medailles qui re- 
montant une tres a haute antiquite, Grecque, Armenienne, Perse, 
Egyptienne, Phenicienne, il n'y en a pas une seule pui appertienne a 
la nation Israelitique, a sa theocratie, ou a sa royaute. Rhegellini, 
La Maconnerie consideree comrne le resultat des Religions, Egyptienne, 
Juive, et Chretienne, — Vol. I., p. 210. 



324 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

their Davids, Solomons, Sauls, Jeroboams, Ahabs, or 
Hezekiahs, ever existed. 

Our good Christian brethren, who can apologize 
and explain away the apparent spurcities and gross- 
ness of their own most holy Bible (and o' God's name 
let 'em explain it away), while they would never en- 
dure nor forgive a wrinkle in the nose at what we 
know (about what we know) of the mysteries of their 
own most holy faith, have had no mercy upon the 
mysteries of the ancient Paganism. They have re- 
velled in sarcasm, and rioted in scorn and scoffing, at 
the emblems of a religion as pure, and of mysteries as 
august, as ever were the vehicles of knowledge to the 
wise, and the veil of it, from the curiosity of the vul- 
gar. They have set our modest and holy God, the 
immortal Bacchus, at whose adorable name ' every knee 
should bow, of things in heaven and things in earth, 
and things under the earth,' our great personification 
of the God of Day, and whose moral never spake 
other admonition to the hearts of men than that they 
should cast off the works of darkness, and put on the 
whole armor of light. They have set him as a drunken 
boy astraddle across a beer-barrel, inviting to licen- 
tiousness, and sanctioning inebriation. Forgetting, in 
the intensity of their scorn, that it is none other than 
He } whose Phoenician name is written in those three 
mystical letters, 1, H, 2, upon their altars, and whose 
Greek name Dionysius (as signifying A^oc Nwc, the 
Logos, or mind of God), is found in the first verse of 
the first chapter of St. John's gospel, whom they so 
impiously dishonor. 

They have portrayed our mystical Pan, the most au- 
gust emblem of universal nature, with their own Devil's 
cloven foot, as half a man and half a goat, in order to 
carry the votes of the common cry of curs, that never 
yet gave breath to a cadence of rationality, against a 



WHO IS THE LORD? 325 

system of physics and morals, as far superior to any 
thing they have set in its place, as the harmony of 
Apollo's lute to the twang-twang of a Jew's harp. 

Forgetting the testimony of their own Eusebius, 
that that Pan was none other than Jesus Christ him- 
self, to whose honor all good Christians eat pancakes 
on Shrove Tuesday, and hot cross-buns on Good Fri- 
day, the pan deriving its name from its resemblance to 
Jesus Christ, as serving to cook anything, and the 
cakes from the fools that would take anything for a 
God. 

But 'twas that great personification, an immortal 
Pa?i, that conveyed and preserved the august truth of 
the unity of God, his exemption from all the bad and 
vindictive passions which superstition has ascribed to 
deity, and his equal benevolence in regard to man and 
beasts, which Mr. Pope has adorned in that grand 
apostrophe of Pantheistical piety — 

" All are but part of one stupendous whole 
Whose body nature is, and God the soul, 
That changed thro' all, yet still in all the same, 
Great in the stars, as in th' eternal frame. 

To him no high, no low, no great, no small, 
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all." 



XIX. WHO IS THE LORD? 



Paet ii. 



1 And Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord, that 1 should obey his voice, to 
let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will 1 let Israel go J' 
— Exodus, v. 2. 



The philosophers of ancient Greece took the words 
Ev to rrav, the All is One, as the formula of their re- 
ligious creed : and there is not a philosopher or man 
of learning at this day in Europe who has in the least 
degree swerved from that creed. Every physician, 
anatomist, naturalist, and geologist talks of nature, 
the works of nature, the vis medicatrix naturm, leav- 
ing the cure to nature, and so on, who would justly 
bear being laughed at if he spoke of either God or 
Devil, instead of nature. 

It is, then, absolutely not true, to represent the 
ancient Paganism as a system of Polytheism; or to 
maintain that the intelligent among the ancient Indian, 
Phoenician, Egyptian, and Grecian people, really wor- 
shipped the various emblems of their sacred science. 
The very names of many of those emblems contain 
specific evidence that they held to one God only, and 



WHO IS THE LORD? 327 

his name to be unutterable, and his nature incompre- 
hensible. It is Christians alone who have been really 
and truly Idolatrous and Polytheistical. 

Thus the very name Apollo did literally contain 
the great truth, and could not be spoken without re- 
minding the speaker of that truth, that there is but 
one God. As Sol is literally the Alone, the Only 
One, the Chaldeans worshipped the Sun, under the 
name Adad, or Adodus, which is the Chaldee render- 
ing of the Hebrew ins, emphatically repeated Ad- Ad, 
the One, the One. 

The Isis Omnia of India, and of Egypt, bore in 
her name itself, and in the sacred inscription that 
adorned her shrine, a- protest against any idolatrous 
understanding of the homage by which men expressed 
their conviction of the truth so symbolized. And it 
was one of the express laws of Numa Pompilius, 600 
years before Christ: Nequis Deum, vel hominis spe- 
ciem vel animalis alicujus formam habere existi- 
maret. 

We see no idolatry in such a mode of expression 
as that ' the heavens declare the glory of God, and 
the firmament showeth his handy work :' and none 
there is, in the supposition that if universal nature, 
the Isis Omnia, the mighty whole, could be supposed 
to declare its great resulting truth, that truth would 
be, the legend that shone in letters of gold in the tem- 
ple of Isis. 'I am what is, what shall be, what hath 
been : my veil hath never been raised, and the fruit 
which I brought forth is the Sun.' 

I find a form of prayer in Danet's Greek and Ro- 
man antiquities, addressed to the Goddess Isis, which 
I translate, as a specimen of the general character of 
Pagan piety : — * 

* ' Tu quidem sancta et humani generis Sospitatrix perpetua 
semper fovendis mortalibus munifica, dulcem matris affectionem, 



328 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUKES. 

' O Holy and Eternal Sospitatrix of the human 
race, ever munificent in protecting mortals, who show- 
est the sweet affection of a mother to the misfortunes 
of the miserable. Nor is there day or night, nor the 
shortest moment which thou passest over, unmarked 
of thy beneficence, where by sea or by land thou 
protectest men, and, dispelling the tempests of life, 
stretching forth thy saving right hand, with which 
thou unloosest even the inextricable twisted thongs of 
fate, allayest the storms of fortune, and restrainest the 
various passages of the stars. Thee, the powers above 
worship, — thee, the infernal honor, — thou rollest the 
sphere, givest light to the Sun, rulest the world, tread- 
est on Tartarus. To thee the planets respond, the 
seasons return, the Gods rejoice, the elements obey. 
At thy command the winds arise, the rains descend, 
the seeds germinate, vegetation flourishes. Thy ma- 
jesty is felt by the birds that fly in the air, by the 
beasts that roam the mountains, by the reptiles of the 
ground, by the monsters of the deep. 

1 But I, slender of ability to praise thee, and poor 

raiserorum casibust ribuis, nee dies, nee quies ulla, ac ne momentum 
quidem tenue, tuis transcurris beneficiis otic-sum, qua mari, terra- 
que protegas homines, et depulsis vitas procellis, salutarem porrigas 
dextram, qua fatorum etiam inextricabiliter contorta retractas li- 
cia, et fortunes, tempestates mitigas, et stellarum varios meatus co- 
hibes. Te superi colunt, observant inferi, tu rotas orbem, luminas. 
Solem, regis mundum, calcas, Tartarum, tibi respondent sidera, re- 
deunt tempora, gaudent, numina, serviunt elementa, tuo nutu spi. 
rant flamina, nutriunt nubila gemmant semina, crescunt gramiaa. 
Tuam majestatem per horrescunt aves ccelo meantes, ferae montibus 
errantes, serpentes solo latentes, belluae ponto natantes. At ego 
referendis laudibus tuis exilis ingenio, et adhibendis sacrificiis te- 
nuis patrimonio. Nee mibi vocis ubertas ad dicenda quae de tua 
majestate sentio, sufficit ; nee ora nulle, linguaequS totidem vel in- 
defessi sermonis aeterna series. Ergo quod solum potest religiosus 
quidem, sed pauper, alioquin efficere curabo, divinos tuos vultus, 
numenque sanctissimum intra pectoris mei secreta conditum perpe- 
tuo custodiens imaginabor.' 



WHO IS THE LORD? 329 

in means to sacrifice, have not fluency of utterance to 
express what I feel of thy majesty ; nor would a thou- 
sand mouths, and as many tongues enable me to do 
so. What then alone can be in another way devout, 
however poor, shall be my care to do : I will meditate 
thy divine character, keeping thy most holy deity 
laid up in the secret recesses of my heart for ever.' 

A conceit which our poet Thomson has plagiarized 
in his hymn: 

1 But I lose myself in Him, in goodness infinite — 
Come thou, expressive silence, muse his praise. 

I am not maintaining that any one form of prayer 
was ever more rational, or in itself a whit better or 
worse than any other ; yet as far as comfort might be 
afforded to a sick mind, by prayer of any sort, it 
would be hard to say how a man might not make as 
much of it by reposing his sorrows on the imagined 
sympathy of an Almighty Mother, as in calling him- 
self a miserable sinner, and sinful dust and ashes, and 
all the dirt he could think of, just to soothe the irrita- 
bility of an imagined — (Hold, thou accusing Spirit, 
write not so fast in thy Day of Judgment Book, — I 
did not say it, — I am on the salvation side still.) 

But it is dulness itself that could miss of being 
struck with the perfect identity of character, betrayed by 
the inscription in the Temple of Isis, 'I am what is, what 
shall be, what hath been, — my veil hath never been 
raised :' and the mystical 'I am that I am ;' and 'I 
shall be what I shall be,' and 'I am he who is :' or, 
4 1 am the necessarily existing being,' which supplies 
the derivative meaning of the name Jehovah. 

While, by a coincidence, still more striking, the 
sacred text of the Bhagavat Pourana, or Book of God 
of the Hindoos, compiled fourteen hundred years be- 



330 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

fore the Christian era, contains almost the same words 
as the basis of the name of the Supreme God of India. 
He is represented as thus announcing himself to Brahma 
(whom nobody can doubt to be the same asAbraham) : 

'Even I was, even at first, not any other thing, 
that which exists, unperceived, supreme :' afterwards, 
' 1 am that which is, and he who must remain, am I.' 

So literally rendered by Sir William Jones. — 
Asiatic Researches, Vol. I., p. 245. 

Now, in the 6th of Exodus, occurs that most cu- 
rious passage, and God spake unto Moses, and said, 
Ani Yahouh, I am Yahou.' 

i&im ^iwbm rpyi b^i pnsi ba tamn» ba anai 

•D b wto ab mrr> 

~Yara 61 Ouvroime, ol Yetshek veol Yoquove 
Beal Shadai, ve Shemi Yahouh lo nidoti le hem. 

I appeared unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, 
as Baal Shadai ; but by my name Yahouh, was I 
not known unto them. Baal Shadai, our translators 
have rendered God Alnrghty : a complete admission 
that Baal Shadai. Belzebub, and God Almighty, are 
one and the same deity. 

Yet so positive a declaration notwithstanding,- — 
we find Abraham repeatedly addressing the Lord by 
his name Yahouh : a contradiction so gross, as clearly 
to prove that the writer of the book of Exodus could 
never have seen the book of Genesis. 

The name Baal literally signified THE Lord ; the 
Sun, as will be seen in all its compounds : 
Baal-Ha-mon, the Lord, the Sun. 
Baal Berith, Lord of the Covenant. 
Baal Peor, Lord of the Opening. 
Baal Perazim, Lord of the Divisions. 
Baal Zephon, Lord of the North ; aye, and 
Baal Zebub, Lord of Flies : 
Inasmuch as he, being a God kissing carrion, 



WHO IS THE LORD ? 331 

breeds maggots, and thence flies in putrid vegetable 
and animal substances: and hence: 

Baal Berith, Lord of Purification, the Sun 
purifying all things. 

Baal Samen, Lord of the Heavens. 

Baal Aitun, the Mighty Lord. 

Baal Elion, the Lord Most High. 
Can we wonder then, that the ancient religionists 
should have been perplexed and pestered as they were 
with eternal feuds and controversies, as to whether the 
Lord were God, or Baal were God — that is, whether 
they should say Yahouh Alehim or Baal Alehim, when 
both names had precisely the same signification, and 
the same reference — that is, to the Sun ; as we find 
Yahouh complaining of his people, in the 23d of Je- 
remiah, that their fathers had forgotten his name in 
that of Baal. Snekchu abutem at shemi be Bole. 
While, in the 2d of Hosea — (that is, of Jesus) — v. 16, 
is the prophecy, c And it shall be at that day, saith 
the Lord, that thou shalt call me Ishi (or Itchy), and 
shalt no more call me Baal.' 

And so as if to make sure of accomplishing the 
prophecy, that they might no more call him Baal, 
their pretended successors, who tell us that the proper 
utterance of the name of the Lord had been irrecover- 
ably forgotten, have taken the itch for calling him 
Adonis, which name has the same signification, and 
the same reference to the Lord, the Sun, as Adonibe- 
zek, Lord of Splendor ; Adonizedek, Lord of Righteous- 
ness ; Adonikam, the Rich Lord ; Adoniram, the 
Lord Most High ; Adonijah, Master. 

It must never be forgotten that the names Jeho- 
vah, Jupiter, Adonis, Amnion, Hercules, Osiris Diony- 
sius, iEsculapius, Apollo, Phoebus, Bacchus, Pluto, 
and Baal, Bel, El Belus, and how many others ? were 
not names of different Deities, but different names for 



332 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

one and the same Deity, and that Deity was the Sun, 
as represented under his different manifestations or 
phenomena in his daily and annual apparent course 
in the heavens, worshipped as the Stygian Jupiter, 
when he descends into the lower part of the earth ; the 
Olympian Jupiter, when again his rising beams peer 
over the mountain top ; the Jupiter Ammon, when he 
appears to be hidden or concealed ; the Jupiter Easter, 
when he is found again, as rising from the dead, coming 
forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber in the east, 
and rejoicing as a giant to run his course, according 
to the beautiful verse cited by Macrobius : 

'Eig- lievg, eig Adqg, eig HXtog, scg Aiovvoiog. 
" It is one Jupiter, one Sun, one Plato, one Dionysius. 

The name Jupiter is precisely the same as that 
which we so egregiously pronounce Jehovah : for the 
four letters of which it is composed are J, E, U, E, 
which, pronounced as one syllable, is Jew, to which 
the addition of Pater, or father, for the greater rever- 
ence makes Jupiter, the Pater being dropt in all the 
other cases of the noun. The Jeue, or Jeve, uttered 
in the most solemn manner, became Jove. 

And accordingly in the liturgical Latin of the 
Psalms, and in the Latin Bibles of Dathe and Casta- 
lio throughout, the word Jove is substituted instead of 
the Dominus, or Lord of the Latin vulgate. 

The soft harmonius utterance of the Greeks was 
abhorrent to the harsh sound of the J, in the Jao, 
Jove, and Jupiter, and substituted its own more ele- 
gant and euphonous Zeta, or letter Z, and thus made 
Zewrrarep ! and Zaw, the Greek for-' I live,' as the root 
or theme for their name of the Supreme Being, ex- 
pressed precisely the sense of the old ' I am that I 
am,' or the living God, which was the meaning of the 
barbarous sounding Jah, or Yahouh. 



WHO IS THE LORD ? 333 

Though Macrobius pretends that the oracles of 
Apollo gave this name to the Sun, pronouncing him 
at the same time the greatest of all the Gods Qpafra 
rov iravruv virarov efifiev law. I pronounce Jao to be, 
of all the Gods, the greatest : and hence those three 
mystical letters, which you will see to this day inscrib- 
ed upon the pediments of our Christian churches, and 
on all religious monuments, D. O. M., Deo, Optimo, 
Maximo. Indeed, you will find them generally print- 
ed by Christians themselves at the head of Pope's 
Universal Prayer. 

The ancients referred this title to their God the 
Sun, as will be found in the context of all the beautiful 
prayers of Homer, in which that luminary is address- 
ed : nor indeed could any form of devotion surpass the 
grandeur and sublimity of their addresses. 

Zev Kvdiore fieyLare Kslaevacpeg aiOepv Naicov. 

4 Lord, Most Holy, Most High, compelling all 
heaven, dwelling in aether.' While in no part of either 
our Old or New Testament is the unity of the God- 
head, and his unapproachable holiness of character, 
insisted on^with half the emphasis and dignity of the 
style of the father of Gods and men. 

The Lord of the Old Testament indeed, gets 
upon his Mount and storms and thunders about his 
godhead, and tells us that he is a jealous God, and 
that his rage comes up into his face, and that his 
nostrils smoke, and he hisses, and smites, and kicks, 
and storms, and raves, and curses and swears, and 
damns, and vomits forth his divinity : which, God 
knows, is condescending enough to our capacities, and 
thank the parsons for the compliment. But contrast 
we for one moment the mild majesty of the Olympian 



334 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

Jupiter, as described in the 6th Iliad, not quite so 
condescending : 

'Aurora, now fair daughter of the dawn 
Sprinkled with rosy light the dewey lawn, 
When Jove convened the senate of the skies, 
Where huge Olympus' cloud-capt tops arise. 

The Sire of Gods, the awful silence broke, 
The heavens attentive listened as he spoke : 
Celestial states ! Immortal Gods ! give ear, 
Hear our decree, aud reverence what ye hear. 

Let down our golden everlasting chain, 

Whose strong embrace holds heaven and earth and main ; 

Strive all of mortal or immortal birth, 

To drag by this the Thunderer down to earth : 

Ye strive in vain ; if I but move this hand, 
I heave the heavens, the ocean, and the land ; 
For such I reign unbounded and above, 
And such are men and Gods compared to Jove.' 



But of all the manifestations of the Sun, his personi- 
fication in the character of Jupiter Ammon was the 
most extensively" prevalent. From that name Ammon, 
is derived the name of the Ammonites, and the 
children of Ammon, or worshippers of Ammon, with 
which we are so familiar in the text of our sacred 
scriptures. 

I have shown you that the meaning of the word 
sacred is secret — that is, something that covers a 
concealed and hidden meaning. So, according to 
Manetho, as quoted by Plutarch, we find the name 
Ammon signifies to Kenpvfievov nat rrjv icpvifjiv, the hid- 
den one, or the concealed, — as we find him directly 
addressed in Isaiah xlv. 15 : 'Verily, thou art a God 
that hidest thyself: O God of Israel, the Savior;' 
whereby he is identified with Osiris or Adonis ! in 



WHO IS THF LORD? 335 

« 
short, with the hidden one, for whom the Egyptians, 
made an annual search. 'Now this hidden one, 
by whatever name invoked, was no other than the 
Sun.' 

The name of Adonis is substituted by every Jew 
in the world, in his reading of every text of the Old 
Testament, which our English renders THE Lord ; 
while the name of Ammon is pronounced in the most 
solemn manner by every Christian in the world at the 
end of the creed, and of every prayer which he believes 
himself to address to the Supreme Being, in express 
declaration that that Supreme Being is none other 
than Jupiter Ammon. And hence, in all our Christian 
tern pels, churches, and chapels, to this day, has been 
retained the never- varied, never-suspended Pagan 
custom of having an officer called the clerique, the 
clarke, or the learned one, in a box under the hiero- 
phant, who, at the close of every prayer, and at the 
conclusion of every ceremony, ducks down his head, 
or puts his hand before his mouth, and groans or 
whispers, or breathes through his nose, in all possible 
varieties of twang and cadence, the mystical word, 
Amen, Emen, Aumen, Hemen, and Hormen, that 
conveyed the secret to the few who may care to know 
what the secret is, that it is Ammon to whom their 
prayers are addressed^ as Lucan has said — - 

' Quamvis iEthiopium populis, Arabumque beatis, 
Gentibus atque Indis, unus, sit Jupiter Amnion.' 

jEthiops, Arabians, Indians, and he might have 
added ^Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Pagans, Jews, 
Christians, have but one God, and that is Ammon. 

The Egyptians, says Herodotus, call the Supreme 
God Ammon ;* while in our book of the Revelation of 
St. John, we find the name Amen, assumed by Jesus 

* K.\l\uav yap AiyviTTLOL naXeuoL rov Am. 



336 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

Christ, together with an exegetical mention of the oc- 
cultation or circumstance of being hidden, and found 
again, which the name Amon signified : ' I am he that 
liveth, and was dead, and behold I am alive for ever- 
more, Arainon.' Bev. i. 18. 'And Egypt is declared 
to be the place where also our Lord was crucified.' 
Rev. xi. 8. And the whole volume of our secret 
scriptures concludes with the declaration of Christ, and 
the response of his apostle, ' Surely I come quickly, 
Ammon. Even so come Lord Jesus.' 

But in the 65th of Isaiah, v. 16, is the most un- 
equivocal name Ammon, and his astronomical charac- 
ter of occultation or being hidden, applied to the God 
Yahouh. 

'He who blesseth himself on earth shall bless 
himself by his God Ammon : and he who sweareth 
on earth shall swear by the God Ammon, because the 
former troubles are delivered to oblivion, and oecause 
they are hidden from mine eyes, saith the Lord.' 

Amoun, or more reverentially, Jupiter Ammon, was 
the Sun in the sign Aries, and as returning with never 
failing constancy into that sign, after having been hid- 
den or occult, during the reign of winter : he acquir- 
ed the characteristic epithet of ' the faithful and true 
witness ;' as we find him speaking of himself in the 
Apocalypse. ' These things, saith Ammon, the faith- 
ful and true witness.' Eev. hi. 4. And in the 89th 
Psalm, ' I have sworn by my holiness that I will not 
lie unto David. His throne shall be as the Sun be- 
fore me, even as the faithful witness in heaven.' 

And the annual Egyptian ceremony of seeking for 
Ammon, the God that hides himself, the everlasting 
game of Hoop and Hide, or hide and seek, is enjoined 
in a thousand beautiful recitatives of our own A?nmo- 
nian — that is, secret — that is, sacred scriptures. ' My 
heart hath talked of thee, seek ye my face. Thy face, 



WHO IS THE LORD? 337 

Lord, will I seek. O hide not thou thy face from 
me.' Psalm xxvii. 9. ' O God, thou art my God, 
early will I seek thee.' Psalm lxiii. 9. 'And why 
standest thou so far off, O Lord, and hidest thy face 
in the needful time of trouble.' Psalm x. 1. 'Lord, 
how long wilt thou hide thyself?' Psalm lxxxix. 45. 
And we find the same old game of blind man's buff 
announced in the 1st of Isaiah : ■ When ye spread 
forth your hands, I will hide myself from ye : yea, 
when ye make many prayers, I will not hear you :' 
as the same game is proposed by the Amen of the 
spell, ' A little while and ye shall see me ; and again 
a little while and ye sha'n't see me.' 

' The difference between the words Aman, Amen, 
and Amon,' says Sir Wm. Drummond, * is nothing ;' 
the aspirate was used or dropt, as it is with us, in- 
differently. 

The Egyptians, as well as the Hebrews and Arabs, 
omitted the vowels entirely; the Greeks supplied 
either one or other at their fancy. 

And thus has the Egyptian Jupiter Ammon, the 
God that hideth himself during the winter, and is 
found at Easter, without so much as an attempted 
translation of the name, without the variation of an 
iota of the ceremony of seeking M?n y been adopted in- 
to all the languages and all the religions of the earth : 
and you shall see to this day, in every church or 
chapel you may enter, the self-same ceremony of seek- 
ing for Ammon, performed in the self-same words, 
and even with the self-same gesticulations and 
manoeuvres. 

The priest invariably shutting his eyes, and spread- 
ing forth his hands, as we do at blind man's buff; 
and either he or another lured to play a part in the 
game, crying out Au-men, as the boys cry whoop, 
in the game which is a mockery of the game of seek- 

15 



338 ASTROXOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

ing the Lord. So as, upon the repetition of Amnion's 
allegorical history (a most essential part of the cere- 
mony), detailing his passing through the Virgin, his 
descent into the lower parts of the earth, and his rising 
again into the heaven : the whole congregation turn 
to the east, as the place where Amnion may be ex- 
pected to appear again, and again cry Amnion. 

Thus, sirs, have I given you what I am sure you 
would seek elsewhere in vain, — a fair answer to the 
question, — Who is the Lord? and shown you the 
knowledge of the Most High. A knowledge which I 
think must establish your conviction of that great 
truth, that there never was a race of people upon earth 
so entirely ignorant, and monstrously mistaken, as to 
the real origin and meaning of their religion, as those 
who profess and call themselves Christians ; and never 
any men so little able or so little willing to instruct 
them as their own wonderfully fine men, their reverend 
and right reverend theoWues. 

But can it be wondered at that it should be so, 
when we see the principle of deceiving the people, and 
of perpetuating ignorance, beyond all example of either 
barbarous, Pagan, or Popish ages, inculcated and 
avowed as the very essence of Protestantism : and 
the multitude are taught to turn from any work or 
treatise that might make them wiser than they are, 
as from poison ; and from the face of a scholar and 
an honest man as from a serpent. And of the mill- 
ions of our fellow creatures who would be ashamed of 
such ignorance on any other subject, not one would 
be found who knows, or ever cared to inquire the 
meaning of the principal word of his own devotion. 

The yerily, and so be it, which our catechised 
school-boys and parish-apprentices are whipt into the 
saying of, in their yes, verily, and by God's help, so 
I will, is as wild a fling off the mark, as mutton and 



WHO IS THE LORD? 339 

boiled turnips : as any but a fool who had made up 
his mind, might see in a moment, by applying that 
explanation of the Amen, instead of the Amen, when- 
ever it occurs. 

The ainsi soit il of the French, so let it be; the 
so be it, of the English ; or the flat, be it so, from 
whence FATE, of the Latin, is the language of command 
and authority, which could never have comported with 
the humility and submission of a prayer, and still less 
of a confession of sin, which, like every other solemn 
act, was to begin and end with the name of the 
Deity to whom it was addressed. As in the ancient 
forms of wills, the worshippers of Amnion always be- 
gan them with the words, 'In the name of God, Am- 
mon.' So whatever other epithets of Deity, as Ado- 
nis, Osiris, Most High, Most Holy, were introduced 
in the course of the prayer, the propriety was observed 
of summing them all up in the name of Him to whom 
they all referred, in the manner of our ' through Je- 
sus Christ our Zord, Amnion;'' which form rendered 
most literally, according to the derivation of each 
particular word, is Bacchus, Apollo, Jupiter, Ammon. 

It would seem a profaneness, even to Christian 
stupidity, to attempt to put their verily, or so be it, 
in the stead of the word Ammon, where that name is 
expressly used as the name of God: and so to give 
'em, thus saith verily, or thus saith so be it, instead of 
thus saith Ammon, where that adorable name occurs 
in so many passages, as interchangeable with that of 
the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, and the Moloch, 
or King of Heaven, the abomination of the children 
of Ammon, from whom all the Christians of the present 
day are lineally descended, and from whose worship 
they have never swerved. 

The pretence to an historical foundation of the 
Christian religion, I have so completely overthrown in 



340 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUKES. 

my work, 'The Diegesis,' that I may hold it a cer- 
tainty that no man who has ever read that work will 
ever attempt to set up that pretence again in any as- 
sembly whatever, where he may be liable to meet 
those who can confute its fallacy .and confound its 
falsehood. 



Delenda est Carthago. 



XX. -EXODUS. 



Pakt I. 



" And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called 
unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses ; and 
he said, Here am i! And he said, Draw not nigh hither, put off 
thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is 
holy ground." — Exodus, iii. 4, 



I AM now to introduce you to the critical study of 
the second of the sacred books, which bears, in our 
English Bibles, the title, the second book of Moses, 
called Exodus. 

This book is, in the Latin vulgate of Pope Sixtus 
the Fifth, and Pope Clement the Eighth, called mere- 
ly Liber Exodus — that is, the Book of Exodus, 
without any mention of the name Moses. 

In the Greek of the Septuagint it is called only 
Exodus. In the Hebrew, it is called merely sito 
Velle Semoth — that is, ' And these are the names,'' 
which is nothing more than the first words of the 
book itself, written a little larger than the rest, to mark 
the place of beginning, but being no title at all. So 
that there is no authority whatever to show who the 
author of the book was. It really is anonymous, and 
our English translators, in taking upon themselves to 



342 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUKES. 

call it the Book of Moses, have committed an imper- 
tinence, and taken a liberty, which they had no right to 
take, and for which they had no authority of any Latin, 
Greek, or Hebrew original. They have added to the 
words of this book, and, therefore, have shown how 
little respect they had for that fearful denunciation of 
the apostle. ' If any man shall add unto these things, 
God shall add unto him the plagues that are written 
in this book.' 

If they found the book without a title, why did 
they not leave it so ? Why presume to give it a title, 
and to assign it to an author of their own mere con- 
jecture and guess, in which, indeed, they have guessed 
so ill, and conjectured so widely off the mark, as to 
expose our English translation to the scorn and ridi- 
cule of illiterate and uninformed infidels, where cer- 
tainly the divine original itself would have stood 
unimpeached, and is, indeed, absolutely unimpeachable. 

The silly and malapert objections of our infidel and 
sceptical writers, and the still more ^illy and absurd 
answers of our Christian advocates, to those objec- 
tions, as that Moses has drawn his own character, has 
called himself the meekest of men, and has described 
his own death and funeral in these books, and therefore 
could not possibly have been their author, are dissipat- 
ed in a moment before the merits of that simple, but 
certainly first to be answered challenge. Where was it 
ever pretended that Moses was the author of these 
books ? Or what should render them of less authori- 
ty, had they been written by the prophet Samuel, or 
the priest Hilkiah, or by any other holy and inspired 
personages ? 

Ere I proceed upon the second stage of this sacred 
science in which' I am so far advanced, I must again 
repeat the principle which I at the first laid down, and 
from which I have never intentionally swerved, — and 



exodus. 343 

that is, that no man that ever breathed, ever did or 
could treat the scriptures with a more rational reverence, 
with more sacred entire respect, and with more intense 
devotion and purpose of heart, to find out and to set 
forth their true and unsophisticated meaning, than I. 
And sit a righteous God in judgment between my soul 
and the soul of any one who shall be offended at what 
he shall hear from me, or between me and the most 
evangelical preachers of the gospel who would 
denounce me as an infidel, or revile me as a blasphem- 
er, and my life, my salvation should be the forfeit, 
if I had not in every instance treated the sacred text 
with greater submission and more becoming reverence 
than he. 

Upon this principle, then, renouncing all imperti- 
nence, all invention, all imagination of evidence where 
evidence is not forthcoming : — 

There is no evidence that these five books, common- 
ly called the Pentateuch, were written by any per- 
son who bore the name of Moses. The books 
themselves assert no such thing, and we have no right 
to assert it for them. 

There is, however, authority which might, to 
those who jump at conclusions, make it for a moment 
seem that the person mentioned in the Book of Exo- 
dus under the name Moses, was their writer, and 
that is where our Savior says to the Jews, ' If ye had 
believed Moses, ye would have believed me, for he 
wrote of me:' and that answer of Philip to Nathaniel, 
' We have found him of whom Moses did write, Jesus 
of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. 

But, Sirs, the day itself is not more apparent than 
the fact, that if that were the case, these writings 
could not possibly be the writings of Moses ; since, in 
no part of them is there the least allusion to Jesus of 
Nazareth : and the only sons of Joseph mentioned in 



344 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

these books are the two heads of the tribes, Ephraim 
and Manasseh. 

There is no evidence then, that these books were 
-written by any person of the name of Moses ; and 
though Josephus, Philo, Menetho, Diodorus, Orpheus, 
Strabo, Longinus, and other exceedingly ancient au- 
thors, have spoken of writings ascribed to Moses, or 
rather, more correctly speaking, to the Moses, — for the 
word is plural, and evidently signifies more than one, 
— there is no reason to suppose that by the Moses 
they meant any particular person. Nor do the books 
of the Moses, in the language of those ancient authors, 
mean anything more than books according to the Mo- 
ses : as our four gospels, which I hope are of quite as 
good authority as the books of the Moses, are called 
gospels, not by, or of, but according to Matthew, Mark, 
Luke, and John. 

Neither is there any reason why the number of 
these books should be confined to five ; but there is 
reason why their number should be extended to 
nine, because we then bring in the four books which 
follow — i. e., Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, as 
resting on a common authority, and bearing a common 
character. For these four books being perfectly anon- 
ymous, as the five of the Pentateuch are, cannot be 
more honorably considered, than as constituting a con- 
tinuation of the same great work. As it was a cus- 
tom, the most ancient and sacred of any that antiquity 
has preserved, in works of genius and literature, to di- 
vide the whole composition into nine books, and that 
in honor of the nine Muses who were believed to inspire 
such performances. 

And then, the Book of Chronicles, which follows 
these nine books, being entitled, as it is, in the He- 
brew, Debri heyemin; and in the Greek, irapaXeinOfievuiv 
— that is, of things omitted, defines exactly the place 



exodus. 345 

of their conclusion, and is a natural appendix to the 
whole nine books. The reader will see that these 
things omitted, and therefore brought in afterwards 
into this appendix, at the end of the nine books, are 
omissions from the Books of Genesis and Exodus, as 
well as from those of Joshua, Samuel, or the Kings : 
thus demonstrating, that the whole nine books, to 
which this common appendix is affixed, must have 
been considered as constituting 'but one common and 
complete work in itself. And supplying us with a 
meaning and a reason, where none besides so probable 
can be assigned, why the books should be called 
Books of Moses, and why there should be exactly 
nine of them — that is, they are books written under 
divine inspiration — that is, the divine inspiration of 
the nine Muses. 

It was in Egypt especially that the nine Muses — 
that is, as these divinities were formerly called the 
nine Moses, received divine honors : their name being 
exactly the same as Moses, and of the same significa- 
tion, and for the same reason, signifying drawn out 
of the waters, and even out of the very same waters : 
those of -the Nile, out of which Moses is said to have 
been drawn, the real exposition of the fable being, that 
the worship of these deities grew upon the respect 
shown to the nine emblematical figures which were 
exhibited among the Egyptians, to denote the nine 
months of the year, during which the country was 
free from the inundation of their great river. Hence 
these Moses were said to be drawn out, or saved from 
the waters, and were represented each as holding some 
instrument or symbol, as a pair of compasses, a flute, 
a mask, a trumpet, &c, expressive of the one or other 
of the months of the year, over which they severally 
presided. And the whole group were represented as 
dancing round the Sun, who, personified as the god 

15* 



346 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

Bacchus, was always represented as attended by the 
Muses, and presiding in the midst of them: and, by 
the metonymy of language, which always gives a 
common name to things which have an essential rela- 
tion to each other, Bacchus himself acquired the 
name, precisely the same name, Moses, and was wor- 
shipped and adored under that name. It being a 
matter of pride and pomp, throughout all the forms 
of Pagan piety, to give their Gods plural names, 
though with a singular signification ; as every one 
knows that the name of God, in the Hebrew text of 
the Old Testament, Eloheim, is such a plural word, 
though meaning but one individual : and our Kings, 
and Emperors, and Bishops, imagining themselves to 
be God's representatives, from the same egregious 
vanity, always speak of themselves in the plural; as 
We George, or We William, by the Grace of God, 
King ; and We John, or We Thomas, by divine per- 
mission, Bishop or Archbishop. And thus the plural 
name Moses, which was first given to the nine Muses, 
was by metonymy transferred, in its plural form, to 
the individual god Bacchus, because he was always 
attended by the nine Muses, and was believed to have 
been drawn out, or extracted from the fire, as the 
nine Muses were from the water. 

And as it was in Egypt that so particular honor 
was paid to the nine Muses, we actually find that the 
most ancient history of Egypt, that of Herodotus, is 
divided into nine books in honor of the nine Muses, 
each of which is inscribed respectively with the name 
of one or other of these Goddesses : a reason which 
cannot lose its influence on our reflections, when we 
compare the striking coincidence of the fact, that the 
historical books of the Old Testament actually are 
nine in number, — that the name of Moses is absolutely 
the same as Muses, — that the books are of an Egyp- 



exodus. 347 

tian character, and refer so eminently to Egyptian 
history, habits and customs, — that the Moses to whom 
they are ascribed absolutely was an Egyptian born 
and bred, and learned in all the wisdom of Egypt, and 
was drawn out of the very same river which the nine 
Muses were drawn out of: and that just as the nine 
Muses answer to the nine months, saved from the 
waters of the Nile, and to the nine books of Heroclo- 
tus's Greek History of Egypt, so do they answer to 
the nine books of this Hebrew History of Egypt, as 
the four gospels of the New Testament, for no better 
reason that any body could ever yet assign, answer 
to the four seasons of the year, and are not said to be 
written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but ac- 
cording to them. It being necessary to the accom- 
plishment of prophecy, that Christ, as well as Moses, 
should be of Egyptian origin ' that it might be ful- 
filled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, 
6 out of Egypt have I called my son.' 

The true pronunciation of the word which we call 
Moses is,' says the learned Volney, ' MoushahS* 

Philo Judseus — that is, Philo the Jew, tells us that 
the name is Mwc, Mbse, which is the Egyptian name 
for water: and Josephus, in nearly the same way, 
derives it from Mo, water, and Uses, which he says 
signifies 'those who are saved out of the water.' 

Gregory of Nyssa takes the safer way of telling us, 
out and out, that the whole word {luuorjg signifies water. 

But if the more careful Philo be to be depended 
on, Mcjc is the Egyptian word for water ; and EES, 
as the learned Bryant shows, is Jive, and was one of 
the titles of the Sun: the whole together making 
water and fire, which was the combined name under 
which the River Nile was worshipped ; the Nile being 
believed to be an immediate emanation from the Sun, 

* Researches on Ancient History. 



348 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

which again identifies the character of Moses and the 
God Bacchus, whom we find worshipped under the 
name of Hues — Zevg- Ofi^piog, or Jupiter pluvialis, or 
the rainy Jupiter, who is really none other than the 
same Deity who is addressed in those words of the 
Psalmist : i Thou, Lord, sentest a gracious rain upon 
thine inheritance, and refreshest it when it was weary.' 
And whose worship has descended to us in those em- 
blematical letters IH2, which are falsely read Jesus 
Hominum Salvator, but which really are the name 
at full length of Hues or Bacchus, the personified ge- 
nius of the Nile, or of the Sun, considered as the 
source of the Nile. 

These etymologies and analyses may seem strange, 
trifling, or unnecessary to fanatical ignorance, and to 
that stupid, uninquiring, and uncurious bigotry, which 
ever holds that the way to treat the scriptures with 
due respect is to be as ignorant as possible, and never 
to know or to inquire what their true meaning is. 
But by the sincere inquirer and humble searcher after 
truth, they will be regarded as of unspeakable impor- 
tance, as often, very often will it prove, that the very 
gem and pearl of truth is hidden in the sand that the 
idle and presumptuous had not deemed worth a mo- 
ment's sitting. 

Thus deriving our knowledge solely from scrip- 
ture, and not bringing our own preconceived conceits 
and presumptuous conclusions to it, we shall not have 
read that Moses was so called, because he was drawn 
out of the water, as if nothing more had been meant 
than what appears in the statement: but we shall 
compare that statement with the wonderful coincidence 
of the God Bacchus Sabazius, having also been called 
Moses, and also Hydrogenos — that is, born of water, 
for the very same reason, and with reference to the 
same waters, those of the River Nile. 



exodus. 349 

And knowing as we do, that this Moses was first 
found on the banks of the Nile, that Christ himself was 
also called out of Egypt, and that the Egyptians cer- 
tainly worshipped the Nile as the Supreme God, or an 
immediate emanation from him: we shall compare 
this our knowledge with the wonderful, most truly 
wonderful respect shown to water, and the curious 
enigmas about water, which run through every part 
of our Christian scriptures. 

When the Egyptians worshipped the River Nile, 
as they most certainly did, it must puzzle invention to 
imagine how they could worship the river otherwise 
than by worshipping the water, or by showing most 
extraordinary respect, and attaching most extraordin- 
ary notions of sanctity and of sanctifying qualities to 
water, and to that Nilometer or Cross with which they 
measured the depth of the inundation : which Cross 
was itself adored in the Temple of Serapis, who was 
the same as Nilus, and which name Serapis is, in 
the language of Egypt, the same as Salvator Mundi 
— that is, the Savior of the World. 

Who then, would not seek to know what I am 
sure no Christian can tell, why and wherefore 'tis that 
our Christian scriptures abound with such innumera- 
ble expressions of supreme respect and mystical honor 
paid to water, that the idolatrous worshippers of the 
Nile could not possibly have paid it greater respect. 

Why is it that we must all of us be hydrogenous or 
born of water, or in some way, or for some reason, 
ducked, or dipt, or sprinkled, or saved, or pulled out of 
the water, as that ' except a man be born of water he 
cannot enter into the kingdom of God V John, iii. 10. 

Why is it that as ' there is one Lord, one faith, so 
also there must be one baptism' (Ephesians, iv. 4), or 
general ducking and washing? 

Why is our Christ himself called by the very epi- 



350 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

thet, than which the idolatrous worshshippers of the 
Nile could give to the Nile none more appropriate, 
even ' the fountain of living waters V 

Why is it, that when the apostle would define to 
us who or what Christ was, that he tells us, ' this is 
he who came by water V 

Why speaks he of himself in the character of the 
personified genius of the river, when he cried, ' If any 
man thirst, let him come unto me and drink ft 

Why, in the very same character, tells he his dis- 
ciple Peter, ' If I wash thee not, thou hast no part in 
me?' 

Why does the woman of Samaria find him, not 
merely in the character of the personified genius of 
water, but as the personified genius of a pump, stand- 
ing where a pump should do, directly over the well, 
and speaking as a pump would do, if we conceived it 
to speak at all. ' If thou knowest the gift of Grod, 
and who it is that saith to thee, give me drink, thou 
wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given 
thee living water' — that is, quite fresh from the 
spring f 

Why is it that St. John tells us that ' his voice 
was as the sound of many waters V or — 

Why is it that the same St. John, to put his 
watery nature beyond all question, describes him as 
not being able to die upon the cross till he had 
first been tapt, and let off, and forwith came thereout 
water, which was the particular essence and life of his 
divinity ? 

And why are we said to be baptized into. Christ — 
that is, ducked and dipped, and plunged over head and 
ears into him. Romans, vi. 3. 

As in like manner, ' all our fathers were baptized 
unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea.' 1 Corinth. 
x. 1. 



EXODUS. 351 

That is, Moses in the cloud, and Moses in the sea, 
are none other than a hieroglyphical way of meaning 
the waters in the cloud, and the waters in the sea, — 
the sea and the clouds being the great primary reser- 
voirs of all the waters. 

And Christna, or Chrishna, absolutely was the 
Sanscrit name of the Biver Nile, from which all the 
waters of the world were believed to be derived : or, 

Why, I ask in the name of that respect which is 
due to these mysterious legends, is baptism, the being- 
dipt or ducked in water, as absolutely necessary to the 
salvation of a Christian as faith — as in that solemn 
injunction, • Go teach all nations, paptizing them, and 
he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.' And 
not being taught merely, nor believing merely, were 
ever sufficient unto salvation, but there must be a 
splash for it. No interest can we have in Christ, un- 
less we are baptized into him, — no Lamb without 
Duck, 

They who are said to be saved by Christ are said 
to be saved by water: and when the apostle, as the 
highest honor that could be conferred on man, was per- 
mitted to have a view of Christ in glory, the angel 
showed him a pure river. 

So great are the mysteries, but so sure is the key 
that unlocks them all, involved in the name of Moses, 
drawn out of the waters. 

" For where, with seven-fold horns, mysterious Nile, 
Surrounds the skirts of Egypt's fruitful isle ; 
And where in pomp the sun-burnt people ride 
In painted barges o'er the teeming tide, 
Which rushing down from distant India's lands, 
Its sable waters fructify the sands." 

And Moses' horns are accounted for, in common 
with those of Bacchus, by the demonstrated fact that 



352 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

they are both of them personifications of the river Nile ; 
the Nile always being represented and emblemized as 
wearing horns, and as identified with Bacchus, with 
Dionysius, with the Ocean (which was believed to flow 
from it), and with the Sun, from which it was believ- 
ed to flow, is addressed in those solemn invocations of 
the Orphic Hymns : 

"EXde \xaKap Aiovvoe TTVpLonope TavpifieTune, 
Tavpoyevrjg kiovvooq evfipoovvrjv nope dvrjroig. 

What reason there shall be to think that such a 
person ever existed; or that he, or the God 
Bacchus, or the nine Muses, (whose very names are 
the same) or Jesus Christ whose character is the same, 
ever existed, or were, either of them, anything else 
than the personified genius of the Great Father of 
Waters, I shall bring before you in a further prose- 
cution of those sacred studies. 

But of thus far as I have proceeded, I dare pledge 
all the respect which I would wish to hold in men's 
minds, that if, indeed, the Bible were in every iota of 
it the word of God, I €0uld not handle it more faith- 
fully, nor study it more laboriously, nor bring forth 
the result of those studies more honestly than I have 
done : as I am sure that even among the ministers and 
preachers of the gospel, the more learned, candid, and 
honest any one were, the less would he be able to 
withhold his conviction from the truths which I have 
brought before you. 

But if words may deceive us as to their meaning, ob- 
jects which we see with our own eyes can hardly do 
so. And who can misread the fact, that the most 
ancient form of the cross, preserved in the Lateran 
Palace at Rome, is set in the stream of a river, rep- 
resented as coming down from heaven. And the Crux 
Coronata of Pope Nicholas the First, in the Church 



exodus. 353 

of St. Clement at Rome, exhibits Jesus Christ nailed 
on the Cross, the indisputable personification of the 
river Nile, the four greater branches of which river 
are represented as flowing out of the Cross, as if 
Christ, and Cross, and all were dissolved in those 
streams at which the beasts of the earth are represented 
as drinking. 

They who have prosecuted with me this sacred 
and delightful science, must be conscious that they 
understand the scriptures infinitely better, see more 
beauty and significancy in them, and feel a higher 
respect and reverence for them than the stupid, unin- 
quiring, uncurious, and uncritical millions, who are 
content to be ignorant ; or than their teachers, spirit- 
ual pastors and masters, whose great interest and aim 
it is to keep them in ignorance ; who call it treating 
the scriptures with respect and reverence, to be as 
profoundly ignorant of them as the ground they tread 
on ; to ask for no more significancy of them than that 
which satisfies the curiosity of the boys and girls at 
a charity-school, and to let anything more of the mat- 
ter than their infancy had been entertained with, ' pass 
by them as the idle wind which they regard not,' 
while they would protect their own ignorance by rais- 
ing the cry of Atheism, Deism, Blasphemy, and In- 
fidelity, against us who are not ignorant, nor will con- 
sent to play their fool's game of shutting eyes and 
opening mouths to see what God will send us. With 
us, words must have meaning ; and if they have been 
called words of God, the more needfully, the more 
laboriously and carefully do we sift out, examine, and 
compare, and hesitate, and doubt, ere we presume to 
ascribe to the Almighty what may prove to be nothing 
more than the cunningly devised fables of wicked and 
deceitful men. 

Should we not act in this way, if the matter were 



354 ASTJRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

only one of temporal interest, — if it were a mere le- 
gacy, or deed or gift, or title to a property? And 
shall they have a right to think themselves pious men, 
or to say that they fear God, who are ready to swal- 
low any sort of nonsense as the dictates of infinite 
wisdom, and as they say, 'hug the Bible to their hearts, 
and call it all divine,' without knowing the meaning 
of a single word of the divine original ? 

Resuming, then, our science : ' Draw not nigh 
hither, put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the 
place whereon thou standest is holy ground,' are words 
directly admonishing any body but a sheer fool, that 
all this argument of this whole book, is of a wholly 
different nature, and an entirely contrary character, 
to that appearance of historical fact and actual occur- 
rence, which it might seem to wear in the up-turned 
wondering eyes of the babes of salvation. It never 
did occur, it was never meant nor implied that any- 
thing of the kind ever occurred. 

Imagination itself could not imagine it : and if it 
could, the text itself forbids our imagining it : ' Draw 
not nigh hither ' — that is, surely, never think of such 
a thing ! Let not such a foolish and insane idea 
have place in your mind : ' put off thy shoes from 
off thy feet ' — that is, put off the common and ordi- 
nary way of understanding things, according to the 
mere letter, and first impression they may make on 
you. s For the place whereon thou standest is holy 
ground ' — that is, not surely, holy dirt of the streets, 
holy gravel and stones, holy muck or mud, or what- 
ever might be the nature of the soil he stood on, or 
stand off merely because there's a hole in the ground ; 
and you'll get your foot into it if you come nearer. 

But all that is herein exhibited is of a holy 
nature, — you enter here within the vestibule of alle- 
gorical astronomy ; must understand upon different 



exodus. 355 

principles, and must interpret by wholly contrary rules, 
to those of the gross and common acceptation of the 
mere words and machinery of the science. 

Though then the monks of St. Basil are idiotish 
enough to think that they are, to this day, in posses- 
sion of the very bush itself in which God appeared 
unto Moses, and call it the holy briar bush, at the 
foot of Mount Horeb, and will tell you how it pricked 
God Almighty's nose, just as the crown of thorns run 
into Jesus Christ's forehead : And though the painted 
windows in the Rev. Edward Irving's chapel present 
you with pictures of that very bush, with God 
Almighty said to be sitting in the midst of it, you 
can see nothing but the bush and the smoke : And 
though, in the 33d of Deuteronomy, God is honored 
by the very title, 'Him that dwelt in the bush,' as we 
know that folks that have no houses must be content 
to do : And though the Egyptian people and their 
descendents, the gypsies among us, to this day, still 
continue to honor their God, by dwelling as he did 
in the bush : yet is the sacred text far more honored, 
and more honorable in our eyes, when, with becom- 
ing reverence, we seek for that more solemn and 
recondite sense, of which we are admonished in those 
words, 'the place whereon thou standest is holy ground,' 
and dismiss from our minds entirely all those grovel- 
ling and absurd conceits which our religious dunces 
and ignoramuses would palm upon people just as 
ignorant as themselves. 



XXL-EXODUS. 



Part ii. 



" And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto 
him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses ; and he 
said, Here am If And he said, Draw not nigh hither, put off thy 
shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest af holy 
ground" — Exodus, iii. 4, 



I eesume the sacred subject, in continuation now, 
from the positions in which I left the convictions of 
ray audience, on Sunday last. 

The ground on which all the narratives, both of 
the Old and New Testament are constructed, is Holy 
Ground : as I have shown the exact derivative mean- 
ing of that word Holy, which is Solar — that is, of 
or pertaining to the Solar System, or astronomical 
ground. And thus we see at once, that the supposing 
a real occurrence of the incidents detailed, or an actual 
existence of the persons spoken of, is as gross and 
childish a mistake as that of the booby who should 
imagine that all the figures which he sees depicted on 
a celestial globe were realities ; that the names of the 
constellations were names of persons who had had a 



exodus. 357 

substantive existence, and their risings and settings, 
their occupations, or goings down into Egypt in the 
West, and their Exoduses, or comings up again in the 
East, were matters of history. 

But I am master of the convictions of all who have 
attended this course of astronomico-theological science, 
to the proof, that Moses, the Muses, Bacchus, and Je- 
sus Christ, are each of them but varied, and very 
slightly varied, personifications of the great Father of 
Waters, the Eiver J¥ile, the very same as Serapis, 
Osiris, and all the multifariously named personifica- 
tions of that great river, which was believed by the 
Egyptian people to be an immediate emanation from 
the Sun: and whose worship is retained to this day 
among ourselves, and to be identified beyond all emer- 
gence of a doubt, in the extraordinary respect shown, 
and wonderful efficiency ascribed to water, in every 
form, and among every sect of Christians and of Chris- 
tianity. 

I showed in my last discourse, that the Christ of 
the New Testament speaks of himself, and is through- 
out spoken of in the character of the personified genius 
of a river. And that the Sanscrit name of the Kiver 
Nile is Christina : which is absolutely none other than 
the name Christ And that Serapis, which is another 
name of the River Nile, is the Egyptian or Coptic for 
the words Salvator Mundi — i. e. the Saviour of the 
World. As the very ancient medals of Alexandria 
exhibit the effigies of the Nile on the one side, and 
of Serapis on the other, and the legend under each 
respectively, to the Nile the Holy God, and to Sera- 
pis the Holy God. And that Hues, which is another 
name of the same river, is none other than the very 
I. H. S. which is inscribed on our Christian altars ; 
and which, read as it should be, as Greek, and not 
Eoman letters, is IH2, which, with the Latin termina- 



358 



ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 



tion us, is Jesus, the common name of Bacchus, as 
the personified genius of the Nile, and of the Nazarene, 
the twice-living demon of the Jordan. 

But when Christians are called upon to answer 
those questions, which any man, having the proper 
spirit of a man, would never suffer to remain unan- 
swered, why is so much stress laid upon water through- 
out the whole Christian system? Why hath a man 
no part in Christ unless he wash him ? Why must 
we be baptized into Christ ? Why must we be born 
of water ? Why is it only he who believeth and is 
baptized that shall be saved? Why is it that the 
new-born infant is not innocent, but is born in sin, 
and under the wrath of God till he be dipt or sprinkled 
in water? Why is the second person in the Trinity 
declared to be " He that came by water ?" Why are 
the three that bear witness on earth, answering to the 
Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, that bear 
record in Heaven, none other than the Spirit, the 
Water, and the Blood, where the second person in the 
Holy Trinity is so expressly declared to be nothing 
else but water ? Why is't that 'tis " Water wherein 
the person is baptized in the name of the Father, and 
of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost? And it is my 
baptism wherein I was made a member of Christ, a 
child of God, and an inheritor of the Kingdom of Hea- 
ven ?" Christians can only stare and look angry at 
you : they could only say that so it is, but wherefore 
it should be so, you have come to a better school than 
theirs to learn. 

If we are to renounce all privilege of having ideas, 
and to attach no meaning to words, why there's an 
end on it, and one religion is neither better nor worse 
than another, but 'tis all a drunken jargon, and an 
idiot's ramble together : but if we may be reasonable 
and consecutive in our train of thought, we cannot, 



exodus. 359 

if we would, shut off the observance of the good che- 
mistry that prevails throughout the Christian theology; 
there is nothing but what will mix and amalgamate. 

But the whole Christian world have never yet hit 
upon one single metaphor or form of speech, save that 
of a pidgeon or a dove : nor is there one, in any part 
of scripture, where the third person in the Godhead is 
alluded to, but in which he is spoken of as a fluid : 
as something that may be drank, something that you 
may carry in a bottle ; the comforter, of which the 
apostle speaks: "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is 
excess, but be filled with the Spirit." It is always 
the pouring forth of the Spirit, or the outpourings of 
the Spirit, or the Holy Ghost poured forth, or some 
predication that could only appertain to what was essen- 
tially fluid, and might be drank or taken internally — 
that is, the figure or metaphor of speech when it is 
the third person of the Deity that is intended. So 
that in the cure of our souls we have both an exter- 
nal and internal application. We are baptized into 
Christ, and the Holy Ghost is baptized into us : the 
one as a bath, the other as a balsam. We are taken 
into Christ, and the Holy Ghost is taken into us ; in 
that we bathe, and this we drink. Nor is it enough 
that we be born of water; but "Except a man be born 
of Water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the 
Kingdom of God." 

Now, Sirs, would it be in any other case that a 
man would suffer his reason to be stultified, his under- 
standing so insulted, and write himself such an ass, 
such a stark-staring fool, and show so much of the 
water and so little of the spirit in his composition, as 
not to say to a clergyman who used such language — 
' Good God, Sir, what do you mean? Know we not what 
water is ? Do we not wash in it ? Do we not drink 
it ? Can any thing be more material, more palpable to 



360 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUKES. 

feeling, sight and taste ? And if this essential agent 
in your theory of salvation be thus material, can the 
other be less so ? Certainly not ! The spirit is lit- 
erally AIE, and the allegorical worship of the elements 
is thus the real secret of your Christian Trinity. And 
you are baptized in the name of the Father, of the 
Son, and of the Holy Ghost ; as those three personi- 
fications are and never were nor meant anything else 
than the imaginary genii of Fire, Water, and Air. As 
' I indeed baptize you with Water,' said John, the 
Baptist, 'but he who cometh after me shall baptize 
you with the Holy Ghost, and with Fire.' 

And as 'tis the second person of the Holy Trinity 
who gives his name Christ to the whole Christian my- 
thos, which from him is called Christianity ; and 
Christna was absolutely the Sanscrit name of the 
river JVile ; and Moses is absolutely the Egyptian 
name for Water ; and all our Fathers were said to be 
baptized into Moses, and all we their sons are baptized 
into Christ We have discovered the meaning where 
our preachers of the gospel could find no meaning at 
all for their own language. For this is what it means : 
Christianity is hydrolatry, — water-worship. Your 
Moses and your Christ are but what Bacchus, Serapis, 
and Osiris were, diversified personifications of the ge- 
nius of the river Nile. 

Put back every expression, every sentence, every senti- 
ment,every action,every attribute ascribed to JesusChrist 
in the New Testament into its proper congruity ; read 
your gospel as it should be read, as the allegory of the 
Nile, and all becomes intelligible, harmonious, beau- 
tiful. The Christian or JVew Testament, is but an 
improved edition of the Mosaic or Old Testament ; as 
that Old Testament was but an attempted revision of the 
still older Testament of the self-same hydrolatry or 
water- worship, in which it was still none other than 



EXODUS. 361 

the river Nile, which was worshipped under the names 
of Osiris, Bacchus, and Serapis. Those names were 
by the Egyptian monks changed into those of Moses, 
and of Christ, of the same significancy and veiling, the 
self-same eternal allegory, under precisely the same 
doctrines, mysteries, and ceremonies. In all which, 
'tis still the Deity of the second person — that is, the 
second personification of the elements, the Deity of Wa- 
ter, the personified genius of the river Nile, who is 
propounded to our faith, and is the object of our 
adoration. 

Our Christian ministers, the most ignorant of all 
ministers that ever were on earth of what the true 
origin and real meaning of their religion is, have mon- 
strously imagined a history, where all was allegory, 
and have taken the very grossest and most apparent 
metaphors of speech as literalities, not allowing to the 
most figurative language upon earth the common use 
and license of a figure. 

And where the Egyptian people, who are known 
to have been all imagination and vivacity, and the 
genius of whose language was so full of trope and me- 
taphor, that they could hardly speak of anything with- 
out personifying it, nor describe the most extraordi- 
nary phenomena of nature without falling into the 
language of an apparent history : — Our Teutonic stu- 
pidity has stumbled on the wild conceit that history 
it needs must be, that real personages were intended, 
and absolute facts occurring to those personages, the 
ultimate gist of their language. 

So when Eastern eloquence spake of wine as ' the 
blood of the grape,' our Western dullness interpreted 
that most obvious figure of speech, as if the grape, to 
be sure, had been a man that had been pressed, and 
squeezed, and crucified, and gone through all the sor- 
rows and calamities of our own famous friend John 

16 



362 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

Barleycorn. When the Egyptian people, by the same 
figure of speech, called the water ' the blood of the 
river:' as the river was their God, they who were 
washed in the river were spoken of as washed in blood. 
The river deity was imagined to be a man who had 
blood : the annual inundation was the shedding or 
pouring forth of his blood : and as that inundation 
was the source of vegetation and fertility to all the 
provinces through which it flows, it was the language 
of gratitude, as well as of allegory, to speak of it as 
his ' most precious blood-shedding, his blood that was 
shed for the life of the world.' They put the allego- 
rical language into the mouth of their allegorical God, 
and it was the language of God himself : ' My blood 
is drink indeed.' And hence the eternal confusion 
between the metaphorical and the literal term, the blood 
and the water observable through the whole Christian 
allegory. Our Christ is he that came, ' not by water 
only, but by water and blood.' Sometimes we are 
said to be saved by water, sometimes redeemed by 
blood. And as this could not be without the idea of 
violence and death, the interesting romance of the 
Man of Sorrows, ' who for us men and for our salva- 
tion came down from heaven,' as the Nile was believ- 
ed to do, veiled the physical history of the annual 
inundation of that great river. 

As the Nile was believed to be a fluxion of Osiris, 
as the Sun, and to flow down directly from heaven, 
the time of the Sun's appearance in the constellation 
of the Lamb, when the point of the Vernal Equinox 
was in that sign, having been observed to mark the 
beginning of the swell, the benefit of the inundation 
was ascribed to the supposed influence of that constel- 
lation, and the waters of the Nile were therefore called 
'the blood of the Lamb.' 



exodus. 363 

Thus, that mystical language of the Apocalypse, 
that he ' saw a pure river of water of life, clear as 
crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the 
Lamb,' had no other reference than to the river Nile, 
proceeding, as it was believed to do, from the Sun in 
the seat or sign of the Lamb. And they who ' washed 
their robes, and made them white in the blood of the 
Lamb,' were merely the washerwomen and laundresses 
that took in linen, and washed it in the waters of that 
sacred stream. 

"Well spake the Lord by the prophet, saying, ' out 
of Egypt have I called my Son.' For it is none other 
than the language of Egyptian hydrolatry or water- 
worship, which, disguise it as ye may, we detect in 
every figure of speech, in every mode of language which 
your Christian poetry could invent, or Christian prose 
could mean. 

It is the idolatrous worshipper of the Nile, who 
would find that language, and none other than that 
which you have adopted, more apposite to the expres- 
sion of his sentiment than yours, when he would 
say: 

" There is a fountain filled with blood, 

Drawn from Emanuel's veins ; 
And sinners plunged beneath that flood, 

Wash out their guilty stains." 

That fountain, that flood, is the Nile, It is the 
river Nile, and of the river Nile alone, that its passion- 
ate idolator would exclaim : 

" Jesu, thy blood and righteousness, 
My beauty are — my glorious dress, 
'Midst flaming worlds in these arrayed, 
With joy shall I lift up my head." 



364 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

Or, 

" Jesu, lover of my soul, 

Let me to thy bosom fly ; 
While the louder thunders roll, 

While the tempest still is nigh. 

Hide me, my Saviour, hide, 

Till the storm of life be past ; 
Safe into the haven guide : 

receive my soul at last." 

The only difference between the Egyptian and the 
European idolator is, that the Egyptian could tell you 
the meaning of the language which he uses, while the 
Christian uses language for which he has no meaning 
at all. 

On the one hand, the language of theology is 
a beautiful veil, enveloping the science of natural 
history, signifying the absolute relations which really 
exist between the visible heavens and this terraqueous 
globe : on the other, it is a tale told by an idiot full 
of sound and fury, signifying nothing. 

Thus, when we study deeply the learned languages, 
and trace out the first meanings and subsequent varia- 
tions of senses which the nomenclature of theology has 
undergone, we find evidence of an identity of the very 
names, as well as of the allegorical histories of Moses, 
Bacchus, Jesus, and the Nile. 

According to Diodorus Siculus, the most ancient 
name of the Nile was OiceavTjs, from whence our word 
the ocean. The Nile, as the father of waters, being 
believed to be the source of all the waters on earth, 
the sea, and all that in them is. In that word, we 
find the confusion of the Greek and Syriac terms, 
O-Kuone-ees* — that is, the dog, the fire, by the very 

* 6-KVG)V 



exodus. 365 

same analogy that Osiris, the Egyptian name of the 
same river is composed of Oavp — is, which is literally 
the Star, the Fire. 

The ancient Ethiopians, by whom are meant the 
Indians, always called the Dog Star (Sirius), and the 
river Nile, by the same name : 

" Because," says Sir Wm. Drummond, " the 
heliacal rising of the Dog Star (Sirius) was observed 
to take place nearly about the time when the inunda- 
tion is approaching to its greatest height. As the 
flood became greatest when the Dog Star (Sirius) 
emerged from the solar rays, superstition imagined a 
necessary connection between the Dog Star and the 
river. And upon allegorising this phenomenon in the 
fabulous history of the Indian Bacchus, they represented 
this deity as always accompanied by a Dog. 

Christna, the undoubted origin of the name Christ, 
was the Sanscrit name of the Nile ; while the name 
Moses, composed of Mbse, which is the Egyptian word 
for water, and EES, which is the Syriac for Fire, 
presents precisely the same combination as the most 
expressive epithet for the personified genius of the 
waters, emanating, as was believed, from the Sun, 
and having their inundation always indicated by the 
position of the Dog Star, as Moses, in the allegory, in 
all his peregrinations through the wilderness, is repre- 
sented as accompanied by his faithful and trusty 
friend Caleb, who "stilled the people before Moses" 
(Numbers xiii. 30) — that is, made them be quiet by 
his barking. 

Caleb, being the literal Hebrew for a dog, 
and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, literally meaning 
Caleb the son of a something that is too funny to be 
mentioned. 

But the identity of the characters of Moses and ot 
Bacchus is not alone that of names as resting on the 



366 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUKES. 

indisputable evidence of Orpheus, who expressly calls 
Bacchus Moses, and ascribes to him the character of 
a legislator who wrote his laws on two tables of stones. 
And this evidence, be it observed, was before the 
world 950 years before the Christian era ; whereas the 
claim of any Israelitish or Jewish people to any interest 
or connection with that story was not made till 600 
years after that time. But the whole fictions of 
Bacchus and of Moses run through every incident, 
like linked horses in a chariot, step for step, and stage 
for stage together, with no more difference in any 
respect than what would appear in any two carelessly 
compiled editions of one and the same story : 

Both Bacchus and Moses were of Egyptian 
origin. 

Both of them brought up in Arabia. 

Both of them distinguished by a wonder-working 
rod. 

Both of them crossing the Ked Sea. 

Both of them fetching water out of the rock. 

Both of them leading armies through deserts. 

Both of them lawyers. 

Both of them parsons. 

Both of them soldiers, 

Both of them conquerors. 

Both of them conjurors. 

Both of them married : and 

Both of them wore horns. 

For look, I pray ye, at the picture of Moses and 
Aaron on your Christian altar-pieces at this day, and 
you will find Moses is distinguished by two rays of 
light coming out of his temples, according to the vul- 
gate rendering of Exodus xxxiv. 29, which says, 
"his face was horned," Of which distinction Bacchus 
was so far from being ashamed, that he was expressly 



exodus. 367 

adored and worshipped under the epithet Tavpotcepug 
T^, which literally signifies Bull-headed Jesus.* 

But ask of the Christian world why their Moses 
wore horns, they cannot tell you : they have no idea 
what it can mean. It is enough for them that Moses 
has said, 'I the Lord thy God am a jealous God:' 
and so you must not say any thing about his horns it 
you love him. The prophet Habakkuk indeed has 
endeavored to put a better grace on the matter, by sav- 
ins; that ' the horns orew in his hands, and there was 
the hiding of his power.' But it was a mistake : the 
horns grew in a proper place, upon his forehead, and 
there was no hiding 'em at all. The apostle Paul pre- 
tends that Moses put a veil over his head ; but this, 
again, betrays its reference to the hidden sources of the 
Nile, and involves another of the distinctive epithets 
of Bacchus, Kpvfoov, the veiled prophet. 

Upon the stupid mistake of taking the Bible for a 
history, and its personifications for persons, we may 
safely defy all the Christian learning in the world, to find 
out the meaning of this mysterious language ; but with 
the clue of astronomical science in our hands, we can 
wind our way through the whole maze. 

And this is its significancy : remembering the rule 
of that figure of speech, the metonymy which I have 
so often explained, and which you will remember by 
that simple rhyme : 

" A metonymy doth new names impose, 
And things tor things by near relation shows." 

You see how the waters of the Nile come to be 
spoken of as the blood of the Nile. You see how the 
Nile, arriving at its crisis of inundation, when the Sun 
is in the sign of the celestial Lamb (of March) comes 
to be considered as identical with that Lamb ; and, 

* Bryant's Analysis, Yol. III., p. 310. 



368 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

consequently, the inundatory waters being believed to 
flow down from the Sun, when in that constellation, 
are the blood of the Lamb ; that is, ( the river of the 
water of life, flowing out of the throne of God and of 
the Lamb ;' that is, of the Sun and the Lamb. 

You see how Moses, being literally the name of 
the waters of the Nile, thus wonderfully influenced by 
the Sun in the constellation of the Lamb, makes the 
heavenly song, or incantation, or singing-in of the in- 
undation, to be called, as it is in your scriptures, ' the 
song of Moses and the Lamb.' And Moses, in the 
Mount of God — that is, the waters of the Nile, con- 
sidered as in the Lamb before their descent to this 
earth, by the same metonymy, is the Lamb, or the 
Sun in the sign of Aries, just at the point when the 
horns of the Bull of April begin to emerge over 'the 
out-going month of March : and Moses therefore ap- 
pears as if the horns of the Bull were just beginning 
to peer over his forehead. 

The image or figure of the signs in which each 
season commenced, became the form under which the 
ancient astronomical priests painted the Sun of that 
season. So the skin of the Lion of July was repre- 
sented as the mantle of Hercules, and the horns of the 
Bull appeared on the forehead of Bacchus, and of Mo- 
ses, and of Christ, whose only difference from the other 
two is, that his character as the Nile is more distinctly 
marked as a ' Lamb that had been slain,* whose blood 
constituted the waters of the Nile, thus believed to 
flow down from the throne' of God and the Lamb. And 
he had seven horns in express designation of the 
seven great branches of that mysterious river, as de- 
scribed by Virgil. 

Thus, by that natural metonymy of language, and 
that irresistable association of ideas which forces us to 
give the same name to things that are observed to 



exodus. 369 

have inseparable relations to each other, the Sun in 
the constellation of the Lamb, the Lamb itself as the 
constellation in which the Sun is, when the first ap- 
pearance of the swelling of the waters of the Nile takes 
place, — the Nile, and the waters of the Nile, was be- 
lieved in, addressed and worshipped as the one, only, 
and Supreme God. 

And though the name of the Nile does not once 
occur in our sacred scriptures, that name having cer- 
tainly been given to the river since the time of Homer, 
yet we know that the most ancient Coptic name, that 
given to it by the Egyptians themselves, was "MS, Jar! 
And under that very name Jah, and under that very 
meaning of that name, the liiver of God, and under 
all the ascriptions and attributes that could indicate a 
river, and none but such a river, do our Christian 
churches to this day resound with the praise and 
glory of our God the Nile. Who, whether wor- 
shipped as the Lamb of God who washes from us 
our sins in his blood, or as the River of God, who 
washes us from our sins in his baptismal waters, 
or as the spirit of God, who baptizes us with his holy 
fire, is still none other than the river Jar. And" all the 
mistake and confusion that appears to appertain to 
the matter, has originated only in the fact, the melan- 
choly fact, that Christians are and ever have been the 
most ignorant of what the real origin or meaning ot 
their religion is, of any people that ever lived. Or 
how else could it have been, that the very ceremonies, 
the very names, nay, the very words, the psalms, the 
hymns, the prayers and praises, the everything that 
was said, the everything that was done, the everything 
that was meant, in the idolatrous worship of the Nile 
should have been adopted in every church and chapel 
in Christendom ; and Christians have been persuaded 
that there was an essential distinction where no Chris- 

16* 



370 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

tion upon earth has "been able to show an essential 
difference. 

It is the language of the worshippers of the Nile, 
their very form of prayer, their very ascriptions of 
praise and gratitude to their God, the Jar, for fertil- 
izing their lands, which none but they could use, than 
which they could use no other, which are plagiarized 
in our psalms, sung in our hymns, and typified in 
our ceremonies. 

What can be plainer in terms, what can be sub- 
limer in meaning ? — ' O praise God in his holiness, 
praise him in the firmament of his power. Praise him 
in his name Jah ! (that is, the Nile) and rejoice before 
him.' In what other language could they invocate the 
descent of the waters from their celestial source, than 
4 O that thou would st rend the heavens and come 
down!' In what other language could they express 
their gratitude, when, as they believed in answer to 
their prayers, the waters had come down ? The River 
of God is full of water, thou preparest their corn, for 
so thou providest for the earth, thou waterest the 
ridges thereof abundantly, thou settlest the furrows 
thereof, thou makest it soft with the drops of rain, and 
blessest the increase of it. Thou crownest the year 
with thy goodness, and thy clouds drop fatness, — the 
fold shall be full of sheep, the valleys also shall stand 
so thick with corn that they shall laugh and sing. 

To whom, — to what but to the river Nile, in whom 
and in which alone all these sublime images of speech 
have a meaning, and all these attributes concentrate, 
could that stave be applicable : 

" Praise Nile, from whom all blessings flow, 
Praise Nile all creatures here below ; 
Praise Nile above, ye heavenly host, 
Nile, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." 



EXODUS. 371 

Three persons or three thousand, all meant but 
one God, and that God was the river Nile ; for in 
the channel of that river dwelt all the fullness of the 
Godhead — that is, all the beneficial influence of the 
Sun's rays ' bodily S 

If it were one or two, or only a few of such analogies 
that supported our theory, it might seem the work of cu- 
rious conjecture merely : but they who shall have followed 
this course of science throughout, will have found that 
there is no part of scripture but what we can by this 
science clearly and entirely explain ; which is what, 
without it, we are authorized in saying, is more than 
the preachers of the gospel, of any denomination what- 
ever, are able to do. The question for your choice is, 
whether you will continue to go to schools where you 
will be sure to hear nothing but the echo of your own 
opinions, from which, if you were schooled forever, you 
could learn nothing, or join with us who take every 
day a new lesson ? 

Delenda est Carthago. 



XXII.-AARON. 



• And the Lord said unto Moses, See 1 have made thee a God to 
Pharaoh, and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet.' — exodus, 
vii. 1. 



Having in my last discourse entirely demonstra- 
ted the mythological character of Moses, and shown 
his place, relations, and affinities in that sublime sys- 
tem of occult science under which the astronomical 
priests so ingeniously veiled all that they knew of the 
phasnomena of the universe, we come now to the study 
of the place and character of his brother Aakon, in 
the same astronomico-theological system. 

Aaron is distinguished in this system as the first 
individual that ever held the priestly office, — the first 
of priests. He it is from whom all the priests derive 
their title, and take the example of their character. 
'For no man,' saith the apostle, • taketh this office 
upon himself, but he that is called of God, as was* 
Aaron,' as he is still more distinguished by that pecu- 
liar epithet applied to him in the 106th Psalm: 'Aa- 
ron, the Saint of the Lord.' 

Aaron, be it observed, the very proverb of a man 
in the odour of holiness, is spoken of as being in so 



AARON. 373 

perfect a state of grace, that the precious ointment 
whereby he was anointed with the oil of gladness 
(Sheshun) above his fellows, 'poured upon his head, 
ran down his beard, yea,' says the luxuriating Psalm- 
ist, * it ran down Aaron's beard, and went down even 
to the skirts of his clothing. It was like the dew of 
Hermon, which fell upon the hill of Sion. For there 
the Lord promised his blessing, and life for ever 
more.' 

Our Christian poetry catches a sympathetic smooth- 
ness in describing the greasy subject ; and we who 
might not have preserved our gravity at the thought 
of a reverend divine with a whole dripping-pan emp- 
tied on his head, are charmed into becoming serious- 
ness on reading — 



1 Twas like that precious oil. 
Which poured on Aaron's head, 
Ran down his beard, and o'er his robes, 
Its costly moisture shed.' 



Now sirs, I pray ye observe ! this is" all the differ- 
ence of the mode of instruction which we follow here, 
and which you would find in any of your churches, 
chapels, or synagogues, throughout this miserably 
priest-ridden country. If you were to attend their 
preachments all your days, not one of them could or 
would tell you a word about the oil, or point out any 
significancy, or meaning, or relevancy in this mysti- 
cal anointment. But to conceal their own ignorance, 
your spiritual pastors and masters would endeavour to 
persuade you that it was a sin to inquire ; and that 
we forsooth are impious blasphemers because we are 
not such dunces, nor so ignorant and stupid as they 
are. 

The analogy that will strike the curious critic in 



374 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

the comparison between Moses and Aaron, and indeed 
they are most curios, are : that as Moses was a type 
of our salvation by water, Aaron was so by oil. That 
as Moses was a type of Christ by his being drawn 
out of the waters of the Nile, and so answering to the 
character given to Christ in the New Testament ; 
' This is he that came by water.' So Aaron was yet 
more significantly a type of Christ in being, in reality, 
what Christ was only in name, the 'Anointed.' For 
Christ, as we are told, signifies the 'Anointed,'* or the 
smeared or begreased. 

And if to have been the first that was anointed, 
and to have been anointed head and beard and all from 
top to toe till he was all over a complete sop in the 
pan be any evidence of being the Anointed, and the 
Anointed means the Christ, it is certain that not Je- 
sus, but Aaron was the Christ : not of Jesus, but of 
Aaron alone could it have been truly said, thai God 
had anointed him with the oil of gladness above his 
fellows. Though Jesus might have been in a state 
of salvation, it was Aaron that was in a state of grace. 

And if being in a state of grace should mean being 
in a state of favour and acceptance with God, still 
less will the claim and title of Jesus admit of compa- 
rison with the paramount honor and distinction of the 
both holy and oily Aaron. 

For notwithstanding all the favour and grace that 
Jesus might be believed to stand in, it amounted to 
no more than such as left him to be a dependant wan- 
derer all his days ; for he had not where to lay his 
head, — whereas Aaron was Arch-bishop of the Taber- 
nacle. 

Thus Aaron bears to Moses, in the Old Testa- 
ment, precisely the same relation that the Holy Ghost 

* XpJdTOC, from Xpib), Ungo, lino, to besmear. 



AARON. 375 

bears to Jesus Christ in the New, — the one is em- 
blemized by water, the other by oil ; with that we 
must be besplashed, with this we must be besmeared. 

When we come into life we must be baptized, 
when we go out of it we must be anointed. We are 
baptized into Jesus Christ, and greased into the Holy 
Ghost. 

If he wash us not we have no part in Jesus Christ. 
If he besmear us not we have no part in the Holy 
Ghost. 

And both of these operations are so equally neces- 
sary, that we are almost assured that the one is of no 
use without the other, — for when the Ephesians had 
not so much as heard that there was any Holy Ghost, 
the Apostle exclaimed, 'unto what, then, where ye 
baptized?' And 'when Paul had laid his hands upon 
them, the Holy Ghost came upon them, and they 
spake with tongues :' though all the difficulty of this 
glorious miracle is to imagine how they could have 
spoken without tongues. 

The idea of the Holy Ghost (account for it who 
may) never occurs but in immediate association with 
some notion of grease, oil, lard, suet, or soap, which 
being mixed up or used in proper combination with 
the waters of baptism, makes what our church calls the 
laver of Regeneration : and the effects ascribed to 
the Holy Ghost bear the same analogy to the effects 
of material oil or grease. It was always attended 
with a peculiar glibness and fluency of utterance, set- 
ting men's tongues running nineteen to the dozen, and 
was therefore supposed to be peculiarly inherent in 
preachers, priests, and prophets, — so that it was called 
the gift of tongues ; and prophets famous for speak- 
ing of things before they happened, and preachers as 
famous for speaking of things that never did happen, 
are always said to preach and to speak with unction. 



376 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

The subject, you see, is exceedingly dangerous : 
and our Bible Society, and Bible circulating fanatics, 
have put a book into our hands which they impiously 
and temerariously call the word of God, of the mean- 
ing of which they are as profoundly ignorant as the 
wallowing swine ; and for which, like swine, they are 
ready to turn and rend us when we offer to lay the 
pearls of true knowledge and real understanding of its 
meaning before them : they bid us examine it, and they 
dare not examine it themselves ; they pretend to teach 
it, and they cannot so much as read it in the original 
tongue ; they know and feel that, in the gross first 
sense and apparent letter, it is monstrously absurd and 
nonsensical, while they can give no other meaning to 
it, and dare not trust themselves to listen to those who 
can. 

The sacred mythologist, whoever it was that wrote 
this my thology, in only proceeding so far as from the sec- 
ond to the sixth chapter of this Exode, has forgotten the 
story he has told about Moses in the bulrushes, and makes 
both Moses and Aaron to have been the sons by an 
incestuous marriage of Amram : ' Amram took Jocha- 
bed, his father's sister, to wife, and she bare him Mo- 
ses and Aaron.' And with curious iteration he re- 
peats, ' These are that Aaron and Moses to whom the 
Lord said, Bring out the children of Israel from the 
land of Egypt, according to their armies; these are they 
which spake to Pharaoh, King of Egypt, to bring out 
the children of Israel out of Egypt : these are that 
Moses and Aaron.' Exodus vi. 27. 

And Aaron took him Elisheba, daughter of Amin- 
adab, sister of Naashon, to wife. Of this Aminadab 
we find no more than the name which literally signi- 
fies Prince of the people. 

But it must not escape our observance, that this 
first priest of the Old Testament is represented as a 



AAEON. 377 

married man, and that the name of his wife Elisheba 
is precisely the same as Elizabeth, the wife of Zacha- 
rias, who is in like manner the first mentioned priest 
of the New Testament. 

The charateristic feature, however, of this be- 
Christed or annointed Aaron, this first of priests, this 
Saint of the Lord, is, that after his most intimate ac- 
quaintance with the Lord God of Israel, after having 
heard the voice of God in the thunders of Mount Sinai, 
proclaiming himself a jealous God, and in his second 
commandment forbidding the making 4 of any graven 
image, or the likeness of any thing that is in heaven 
above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under 
the earth.' After having been himself the distinguish- 
ed individual to whom alone it was permitted to enter 
into the holy of holies, and conjointly with his brother 
Moses having seen God face to face, and conversed 
with him as a man converseth with his friend — after 
having been an eye-witness of all the miracles which 
God wrought in Egypt ; nay, himself the immediate 
agent in performing them ; possessing the very wand 
by whose mystical uplifting God rained all his plagues 
on the head of the devoted Pharaoh. Yet this Rev. 
Mr. Aaron, this anointed of the Lord, took the oppor- 
tunity when his brother's back was turned, of turning 
infidel at last, and telling the congregation he had been 
preaching to so many years, that all that he had been 
preaching was mere gospel — a hoax, a rhodomontade 
that did well enough to preach, but not a word of truth 
in't. And as for the pompous fling of l worshipping 
the Lord thy God, that made heaven and earth, the 
sea, and all that in them is,' he substituted a calf. 

O day and night, but this is wonderous strange ! 
4 They made a calf in Horeb, and worshipped the gol- 
den image.' The ladies lent their earrings to make 
him, the priest of God burnt incense before him, all 



378 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

Israel worshipped him. And none other than Aaron 
himself it was who made this golden calf, who ex- 
pressly called it God, and Lord, the most awful names 
of the God of Israel. And Aaron built an altar be- 
fore it, — and Aaron made proclamation, and said, to- 
morrow is a feast unto the Lord — that is, unto Jehovah 
the calf. ' And the people rose up early in the mor- 
row, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace 
offerings, and the proclamation was pBWttpu 'these 
be thy Gods, O Israel' — that is, this calf is thy trinity, 
O Israel. 

The apology which Aaron afterwards made to his 
brother Moses, for this flagrant idolatry, is scarce less 
mysterious than the idolatry itself: 'Let not the an- 
ger of my Lord wax hot ; thou knowest this people 
that they be set on mischief. For they said unto me, 
Make us Gods which shall go before us ; for as for this 
Moses which brought us up out of the land of Egypt, 
we wot not what has become of him. And I said unto 
them, whosoever hath any gold, let them break it off: 
So they gave it me, then I cast it into the fire, and 
there came out this calf.' 

One might bravely say at the first glimpse of the 
matter, that if it were so, these children of Israel must 
be the stupidest people that ever lived. 

But flinging of stones is never a safe game, when 
they fly back into our own faces. If there were no 
other people who ever gave their gold to their priests, 
and no other people that worshipped the golden image 
that the priests set up, one might enjoy one's full fling 
at them. But there is a country which I have visit- 
ed in my travels, where the golden calf is worshipped 
to this day, in the shape of a calf's head set in gold, 
and surrounded with an inscription expressive of his 
eternal power and Godhead, Dei Gratia Hex; as much 
as to say, this is the true God and eternal life. It 



AARON. 379 

being an acknowledged maxim among the people, that 
the Rex, of Basileus (which was originally one of the 
titles of the Sun) never dies. And by a most curious 
analogy, the ancient coins and pieces of money of 
Crete and Athens actually bore on them the impres- 
sion of a Calf or Bull's head, as the object of their 
idolatry, from which pecus, the general name of cattle, 
our wovd pecuniary is derived: thus discovering what 
we in vain attempt to conceal, that money is the uni- 
versal God ; and religious matters, and pecuniary 
matters, are but different names for one and the same 
thing. 

But we must not condemn the greasy priest unad- 
visedly, — for though his calf-making was a grievous 
sin, and his brother Moses was so excessively provok- 
ed at it, that in a fit of violent rage he broke the 
tables of stone on which the second commandment 
which Aaron had so flagrantly violated was written ; 
yet, as if on purpose to make sure of breaking the 
commandment too, he made four calves himself, and 
set 'em up, not merely on the mount of God, but in 
his very sanctuary : and there they stood each upon one 
leg, like a cock upon a hen-roost, on the four corners 
of the mercy-seat of Yahouh. 

Nor was the worship of the calf abolished in Israel, 
even after the reigns of their greatest and wisest kings. 
It was Jeroboam who reigned over ten tribes out of 
the twelve, who set up two calves of gold, and repeat- 
ed with respect to them the proclamation of Aaron, 
' Behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee out 
of the land of Egypt.' 1 Kings, 12. So invincible 
was this moscholatry, or calf-worship, that their most 
zealous king, Jehu, who in his zeal for the Lord of 
Hosts, the God of Israel, destroyed the worshippers 
of Baal, in the good old orthodox way, of a general 
massacre : yet from the sins of Jeroboam, the son of 



380 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

Nebat, who made Israel to sin, Jehu departed not, — 
to wit, the golden calves that were in Beth-el and that 
were in Dan. 2 Kings, 10. But not alone the ten 
tribes that seceded with the usurper Jeroboam, but the 
two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, that remained true 
to their legitimate sovereign, adopted calf- worship ; and 
Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, it was, who ordained 
them priests for the high places, and for the devils, 
and for the calves which he had made ; and such as 
set their hearts, says the sacred text, to seek the Lord 
God of Israel, came to Jerusalem to sacrifice unto the 
Lord God of their fathers, when that Lord God of 
their fathers was nothing but a calf. 

And indeed, with what reason can Christians who 
worship a God that was born in a stable, complain of 
the Jews for worshipping one that was born in a cow 
house. 

But not alone in Judah and in Israel was calf- 
worship the true and universal religion, but not the 
prevalence of Christianity upon earth : no ! nor the 
presence of God himself in heaven (say the scriptures) 
has yet set aside the divine honors paid to the God- 
head of a calf. For even there, in heaven, before the 
throne of God, we are assured by St. John, that there 
was a beast like a Calf. Nor was that calf merely 
before the throne, but it was in the throne, — not 
merely was the calf ivith God, but the calf was God. 
And now I trust the plot is thick enough about us. 

Can your Christian ministers explain all this ? You 
know they cannot! But is not the probability, at 
least, that it might admit of explanation ? 

And are we to suppose that the Egyptian people, 
among whom this calf-worship originated, clever and 
accomplished as they were in arts and sciences, in lit- 
erature and poetry, could have meant no more by 



AAEON. 381 

these strange types and figures than that gross sense 
which is all your Christian preachers can attach to 
them ? 

Would it be held unfair, unjust, and ungenerous 
to take the Christian in the grossest sense of his words, 
when we hear him address his God, as a beast, and 
call him 'a dear and bleeding lamb,' and sigh out his 
plaintive piety in such dolorous ditties as, 'O Lamb 
of God, that taketh away the sins of the world, have 
mercy upon us.' And can it be fair to ridicule the 
equally sublime and mystic language of the worshippers 
of that dear sacred Bull, who, with his everlasting 
horns, did break the mundane egg out of which crea- 
tion sprang? 

Or how is it possible to obey that mystic command 
of John the Baptist, 'Behold the Lamb of God that 
taketh away the sins of the world ;' and not at the 
same time behold the calf of God who taketh away 
the sins of the world, still more effectually, who is 
the very next constellation, as April is a more glorious 
and sunshiny month than March? And why is it 
that we could not be redeemed by the blood of Bulls 
and Goats, but with the precious blood of Christ as 
of a Lamb without blemish and without spot? But 
for that reason, written in the stars of heaven, that it 
was not when the Sun was in the constellation of the 
Goat, though that be properly the beginning of the 
year, that the waters of the Nile, whose Sanscrit 
name was CAristna, were observed to begin to swell 
for the inundation ; and so, not the blood of the Goat, 
that was the blood of Christ. JSTor was it when the 
Sun was in the constellation of the Bull of April, 
though very near that time, that the swell began ; 
and so, not the blood of the Bull. But it was exactly 
when the Sun entered the celestial sign of the Lamb 
or Ram, that the mighty river began to rise from 



382 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

its bed ; or, as the Egyptian people believed, to 
descend from heaven : and hence the blood of Christ — 
that is, the water of the Nile, was the blood of the 
Lamb. 

Now perpend, I pray, the solution of this astro- 
nomical enigma. Compare your absolute data, — the 
name of Aaron literally signifies lofty or mountainous. 
Your Moses, Aaron, Joshua, Elijah, and Jesus Christ, 
all contrive to die, or to set, or to disappear from the 
tops of mountains, or eminences, the most convenient 
for observing the last glories of the setting Sun, or 
the moment of the occultation or sinking below the 
horizon of particular stars. Moses died, as he deserved 
to do, with his shoes on, on the top of Mount Nebo ; 
though he appears again, none the worse for such a 
death, in company with Elias, who never died at all, 
on the top of the Mount of Transfiguration — + hat is, 
literally the Mount of Metamorphosis ; talking with 
Christ who was metamorphosed on that occasion into 
the Sun. While poor Aaron died, or rather his 
brother Moses killed him on the top of Mount Hov 
(Numbers xx. 28), which literally signifies the Mount 
of Light 

For as Aaron had been so abundantly be-christed, 
it wouldn't have done to have let him off without a 
little be-crucifying with it. And his brother Moses 
wanted his clothes, so he stript him stark naked, in 
order to make him a type of the first Adam as well as 
of the second. 

And Christ died on Mount Calvary (called for 
some reason which we may guess at, more safely than 
we may tell, the place of a skull), yet he appears 
again in the same regimentals that Aaron died in, to 
make his last grand ascension into the heavens, from 
which he had descended. 



AARON. 383 

And where was it that Aaron had set his calf, but 
in Horeb? 

Why is Jeroboam said to have set up two calves ; 
Ho wit, the calves that were in Beth-el and in Dan/ 
when one calf must have answered all the ends and 
significances of the sacred hieroglyph ? Why, but 
that by a mistake precisely similiar to that of St. 
Matthew, who has represented Jesus Christ as riding 
upon two asses, he has mistaken Beth-el, which 
literally signifies the house or mansion of the Sun, and 
is nothing more than an interpretation of what the 
word Dan means for a distinct name, and has thus 
supposed, that because the calf was in that mansion 
of the /Sun, which is called Dan, there must needs 
have been two calves. Dan (as I have heretofore 
shown), being literally the name of that mansion of 
the Sun, which is the sign of the Zodiac which we call 
Taurus : and where, as you see, the celestial or 
golden calf^ remains to this day. 

That Latin word Taurus, divested of its mere 
Latin termination us, being none other than Taur or 
Thor, the name of the Supreme God of Egypt, from 
whom our fourth day of the week derives its name, 
Thor's-day, or Thursday, — as the Latins have it, 
Die Jovis, or Jupiter's day. 

There was indeed, then, but one calf in the matter, 
and that calf was never any other than the beautiful 
constellation Taurus, the Bull, which you may see 
this evening in the eastern part of the heavens — that 
is, in Horeb, the East, the Calf in Horeb, which you 
will easily distinguish by the little group called the 
Seven Stars, or the Pleiades, which are in his fore- 
head, and that most magnificent shining red star of 
the first magnitude, which is the Bull's-eye, and 
commonly called Aldebarn, that name literally signify- 
ing the shiner. 



384 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

Nor will it seem quite so monstrous that Aaron, 
the Saint of the Lord, should have set up a golden 
image of this celestial calf in Horeb, in the East, in 
the Mount of God, in Bethel, in Dan, — all these 
definitions, as you see, identifying the place of Taurus, 
the Bull of the Zodiac : — when to this very day, you 
have only to go to the top of Ludgate-hill, and with- 
out a microscope, you will see Beth-el, the house of 
God, which we call St. JPauVs ; and in that Bethel, 
even upon the western pediment of that Cathedral, 
you will see an image of that very Calf, couchant at 
the foot of the figure of St. Luke the evangelist. And 
that it can by no possibility be other than an image 
of that very calf of the Zodiac, your own eyes shall 
certify you, when, as you shall see, that calf is a 
peculiarly religious calf, — he is in the very act of 
saying his prayers ; he is down upon his knees ; he 
is just going to say — {but I must not say what he is 
going to say). You see only his head and shoulders 
and his two fore legs, while his hind legs and all the 
rest of his body are invisible, which is precisely the 
form and attitude of the Bull in the Zodiac, of which 
all the hinder parts lie back in the regions of infinite 
space which no telescope can reach, leaving only to 
the eye of man a view of so many of the stars as 
fall within the imaginary outline of a Bull's head and 
shoulders. 

And thus have our Christian architects, in the 
construction of our most magnificent Cathedral, set 
up the Calf in Bethel, and observed the plan of 
building which the great astronomical priest, who 
performs the character of God Almighty in the sacred 
drama, proposed to the builders of the Temple ; "for 
see," said he, "that thou make all things according to 
the pattern" — that is, according to the pattern of things 



AAEON. 385 

in the heavens. And there they are, indeed, according 
to the pattern. 

And by a most wondrous analogy, as a Calf is a 
young Bull, so a chapel, the house in which the calf 
was worshipped, is a young church ; and all our reli- 
gious words, as well as our religion, being derived from 
Egypt, as the most learned Bryant has proved, our 
religious word chapel is directly traceable to the Egyp- 
tian Calf-el, like the Hebrew Beth-el, signifying the 
house of God, the Calf, 

Our Christian edifices are but improved eidouran- 
ions, in which /the astronomical errors and blunders of 
the Old Testament, or Old Covenant — that is, con- 
stellarium or groupings together of the Stars, as that 
word Covenant literally means, are corrected. And 
"the same stone which the builders rejected is become 
the chief stone of the corner." Now, if ye have eyes 
to see, do, I beseech ye, open them upon our Christian 
Bethel, and see whether the stone which represents 
the calf at the foot of the evangelist St. Luke, on that 
edifice, is not literally and absolutely the chief stone 
of the corner. 

And as you shall see the undoubted image of Tau- 
rus, the Bull of the Zodiac, on the outside of the edi- 
fice, pay your twopence and go in, and you will see 
or ought to see, a magnificent painting of Aaron the 
Saint of the Lord, who is none other than the person- 
ified genius of the star Aldebaran in the Bull's fore- 
head, standing there on the south side of the altar of 
God, and basking in the rays of glory, which glance 
off from the tetragrammaton. Aaron was first distin- 
guished as a priest by the Hebrew name Cohen; but 
this name was that which the Greeks gave to the Stars 
of the first magnitude ; as Cohen Sehor, Cohen Sirius ; 
and of these the most eminent, the Cohen Aldebaran, 
the Priest Aldebaran, who was the tutelary star of 

n 



386 ASTRONOMICOTHEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

the Arabian tribe of Misa, presents us with a palpable 
version of the Kohen Aherun, The Priest Aaron, the 
tutelary star of the sacerdotal tribe of Levi. 

Then look upon the starry heavens, and see the 
relations of that beautiful star, that anointed prophet, 
priest, and king, to the stars about him ; to those beau- 
tiful princesses the seven stars, and to the beneficial 
effects which all nature experiences on the rising of 
that star with all his shining train. And then you 
will be able to see the meaning, where none of your 
gospel-preachers can show any meaning at all, for that 
astrolatrous language which you are taught to repeat, 
every ninth day of the month, in your 46th Psalm : 
' Thy seat, O God, is for ever and ever, — the sceptre 
of thy kingdom is a right sceptre. Thou hast loved 
righteousness, and hated iniquity ; wherefore God, 
even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of glad- 
ness above they fellows,' — i. e., more oil on Aaron 
than on any other priest, emblematically as more of 
the Sun's rays on Aldebaran than on any other star, 
physically. 

"All thy garments smell of myrrh, aloes, and 
cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have 
made thee glad." 

Arabia, famous for its spices, myrrh, aloes, and 
cassia, thus associates the fragrance of those drugs 
with the influence of the beautiful star, their tutelary 
Aldebaran of the month of April, when these odorous 
plants are in full blossom ; and when, upon the grate- 
ful senses of the voyagers in the Levant, 

' North east winds blow 
Sabsean odors from the spicy shores 
Of Araby the blest.' 

King's daughters are among thy honorable women, 
— upon thy right hand doth stand the queen in a ves- 



AARON. 387 

tare of gold, wrought about with divers colours; and 
so stand the Pleiades, the daughters of Atlas, in the 
court of the star Aldebaran. And even so doth stand 
the Queen Star among the Pleiades, twinkling with 
variegated light, with purple and gold, ' sky tinctured 
grain, and colours dipt in heaven.' 

Nothing in nature likes to be reckoned old, — noth- 
ing would be old that could help it, — and therefore in 
personifying God as either man or beast, care was al- 
ways taken to represent him as a young one of the 
sort. Thus the Lamb of God, the precious bleeding 
Lamb,' was considered a most sublime and decorous 
expression of true piety. The attribute of immortal 
youth could never be dispensed with. An eld God 
would not have been relished. For this reason the 
Pagan priests rilled their Pantheon with boy-divini- 
ties : Osiris, Horus, Helios, Bacchus, and Apollo him- 
self were all of them young. And I dare appeal to 
all the hymns and prayers, and all the sermons and 
religious tracts ; all that is said, sung, read, or heard 
in any of our churches and chapels to this day, 
whether God the Son does not take precedence of 
his Father ; and whether the doctrine is not continu- 
ally, ' Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt 
be saved V 

The divinity of the Father is only subsidiary to 
the convenience of appropriating the exclusive idea of 
youth or boyhood to the Son : for which the writers 
of the New Covenant have strained the point so ridi- 
culously, that, forgetting that they had represented 
him as about thirty or thirty-one — that is, a number 
aswering to the number of days in a month — that is, 
to the length of time during which the Sun continues 
in any one of these twelve signs ; as that, as you see 
in this allegorical language, may be said to be the age 
of that sign, the age of the Lamb of March, of the 



388 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

Calf of April, or of the two Boys of May, the spring 
month so necessarily associated with an idea of youth 
and boyhood, — they have spoken of him as being still 
like Bacchus and Cupid, eternally a child ; — using the 
epithet, the holy child Jesus. For of a truth, say 
they (that is, in a true understanding of this enigmati- 
cal astronomy) against thy holy child Jesus, whom 
thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, 
with the Gentiles and people of Israel, were gathered 
together — that is, grouped into constellations, through 
which the infant son has to pass or overcome in his 
annual progress through the year. 

The people of Israel (or Benni Yesroile), as I 
have heretofore abundantly demonstrated, being none 
other than the stars which constitute the twelve tribes, 
or twelve signs of the Zodiac. All the controversy be- 
tween the merits of the Calf of Aaron and the Lamb 
of Moses is the chronological question, whether the 
point of the Vernal Equinox was in one or other of 
those signs ; and whether, therefore, the honor of 
being the Supreme God or leading constellation should 
be assigned to the Calf or the Lamb. The constella- 
tion which first rises above the Equator, at this equi- 
noctial point, being always said to lead or bring up 
the twelve signs which follow out of the Land of Egypt, 
or house of bondage — that is, from below the horizon, 
where they are supposed to pass through a state of 
misery and servitude into the land flowing with milk 
and honey. 

And hence the significancy of that never-varied, 
and as I may say, before the development of this great 
science, that never understood, predication which al- 
ways accompanies the name of the Elohim, which we 
translate God. None was God, or worshipped as 
God, but that constellation which was the leader to 
the rest, and brought them up out of Egypt. 



AAEON. 389 

Thus the astronomical language of the Lamb of 
Moses was, 'I am the Lord thy God, which brought 
thee up out of the Land of Egypt.' While Aaron 
would have had it, that it was the Calf or Bull of the 
Zodiac that was the leading constellation ; and said, 
therefore, of the stars that constitute that group, 
"these are thy Gods, O Israel, which brought thee 
up out of Egypt.' While Jeroboam, 800 years after- 
wards, fell into the same astronomical mistake, when 
he said of the same golden or starry calf in Dan 
(that is, in the sign Taurus) : 'Behold thy Gods, O 
Israel, who brought thee up out of Egypt.' 

Neither of those astronomers being acquainted with 
the precession of the Equinox, which had removed 
the diameter of leader-up out of Egypt out of the sign 
Taurus, backward into that of Aries, as that fact was 
known to the priest who personated the character of 
Moses, and who consequently endeavored to correct 
the ancient Egyptian theology according to his more 
accurate astronomy. 

The Egyptian name of the Lamb of God — that 
is, of the Sun in Aries, — was Amnion; to which 
was added the glorious title Jupiter, forming God Ju- 
piter Amnion. Ammon variously sounded as Amen, 
Aman, Amoun, and sometimes dropping its initial ar- 
ticle, — becoming lion and Man, was ridiculously na- 
turalized into the language of the various nations which 
adopted the Egyptian superstitions without any refer- 
ence to its original signification, which is Am-ON, the 
Fire, the Sun. And Jesus Christ gets the title, not 
merely of the Lamb of God, but of the Amen, the 
faithful and true witness, in the Revelations of St. 
John : and of the Son of Amen, or Son of Man, in 
the gospels. 

But as the wonderful order and regularity of the 
motions of the heavenly bodies presented the mos^ mag- 



390 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

nificent type of faithfulness to engagements, of fidelity 
and truth, the name of the chief of them, Am-ON, the 
Fire, the Sun, became a name for truth, and the ut- 
terance of that name was the most solemn protestation 
of sincerity or consent. 

Ammon was the same as Bacchus, as also was 
Yes. And thus, to this day, we pronounce the names 
of our God, the Sun, when we say Amen, and yes, 
Ammon, or Amen, for verily, or so be it, or so it is, 
and yes, for it is so, or it shall be so, or Twill. This 
yes is only pronounced in the vocative or ablative, in- 
stead of the nominative case, when the Quakers call 
it yea, which literally signifies by God. As the French, 
who cannot distinctly utter a y, call it Oui, which is 
still the same, the common name of Ammon and Bac- 
chus, and bearing the same signification as an appeal 
to Bacchus or Ammon by God. 

But the Greek word of yes or yea, by a curious 
anomaly, is New. Hence the eternal quarrel between 
yea and nay, and people continually being apt to say 
nay when they mean yea : and hence the apostle's 
decision of the matter. The Son of God, Jesus Christ, 
was not yea and nay, but in him was yea — that is, in 
Him was Bacchus. For all the promises or puttings 
forth of God in him are yea, and in him Amen — that 
is (than which words could be no plainer), Bacchus, 
Jupiter, Ammon, Amen, Yea, and Jesus, are all one 
and the same God, the personified genius of the Sun 
in the sign of Aries. And verily I say Amen, Yea, 
Oui, and by God it is so. 



XXIIL— MIRIAM. 



And Miriam, the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in 
Jier hand, and all the women went out after her with timbrels and 
with dances. And Miriam answered them, Sing ye to to the Lord, 
for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he 
thrown into the sea.' — Exodus, xv. 20, 21. 



It is in this truly sublime and beautiful passage, 
that we have first mention of the august personage, 
with whom I am now to bring you into better acquain- 
tance. 

Both the Greek and Latin versions which I have 
read to you, are honester and fairer than the English, 
which in this instance, as in many others, egregiously 
Protestantizes — that is, gives it a false or strained 
rendering, in order to put a Protestant complexion on 
a Catholic sense, and has actually changed the name 
of the original text in this and in every passage where 
it occurs, into Miriam, in order to prevent our suspect- 
ing or discovering that this Miriam, the first of prophet- 
esses (as her brother Aaron was the first of prophets), 
was not a mere Miriam, which might be a name for any 
one, but is indeed Maria ; even none other than that bless- 
ed Virgin Mother of God, and Mother of us all, eter- 
nally a Virgin, holy as God is holy, and pure as God 
is pure ! 

What confidence then can or ought a sensible man 
to place in our Protestant translation of the Bible, 
when he discovers that it has been translated so frau- 
dulently, so deceitfully, and would have concealed from 
him so important, so grand a fact? Or what confi- 
dence in any of our Protestant clergy or preachers ; or 



392 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUKES. 

any one of whom, from the Lord Archbishop in a cathe- 
dral to the preacher in a tent, were you either by 
writing or the most respectful inquiry to call for an 
explanation of what they preach, they would cover 
their inability to give it by treating you as an infidel, 
and an enemy, and a rebel against God, for presuming 
to ask for it. 

But observe : This Mary, the prophetess (for that 
is her true name) is introduced in the sacred ode very 
abruptly, as a personage with whom the reader is sup- 
posed to have been previously, and from other sources 
sufficiently acquainted. There was no occasion expli- 
citly to state who the Lady Mary was, or whence she 
came, or what part she bore in the bringing up of the 
children of Israel out of Egypt. 

Know ye not Mary ? Not to know Mary argues 
an ignorance of the theological system too gross to be 
hopeful of instruction. Mary, the prophetess, the 
foreteller, the forerunner, the announcer, the indica- 
tress, the harbinger and herald, as that word ai ttJjriB, 
He JVebiah, the prophetess, signifleth. And what 
signifies that name b'ttS"^ Mariam f It is in the sin- 
gular Mare, the sea. It is in the plural Maria, by 
quantity pronounced Maeia, the sea. It is pa, the 
feminine of «£ ; in the Greek noun of number, for one, 
or the Sun. And Maia, the mother of Mercury ; and 
Myrrha, the mother of Adonis. Its symbol or cypher 
from the earliest formation of letters, M, Y, — an m, 
with the down-stroke of a jod, or y, affixed to it, — M, 
for Mare, and Y, or J, for Yes, or Jesus, — Mary be- 
ing the mother of Jesus. And none other than that 
very hieroglyph (as the shapes of all our letters were 
originally hieroglyphical) constitutes as you see, the 
monogram of the Celestial Virgin of the Zodiac, who 
like all the other constellations, is sprung out of the 
sea : as all the twelve signs of the Zodiac appear to rise 
out of the sea, and to set in it, as they rise above the 



MIRIAM. 393 

horizon of the East, and set again in the West : and thus 
acquire the allegorical character of the twelve fishermen. 

And where does this Lady Mary make her first ap- 
pearance, but where she should do, and as her name 
imports ? TLapa Biva -noXvfyXoic^cio dakacoTjg, by the 
shores of the much resounding splashing sea ! 
HoXv(pXoLo$oio daXaGG7jg ) the epithet of multitudinous 
always being appropriated to Mare, the sea, the mul- 
titudinous ocean, the genius, goddess, or lady of the 
sea, as Venus, Miriam, and Mary, severally were, ac- 
quired the name of Myrionimous, and Polyonomous — 
that is, of a thousand names, and of many names, 
for which reason Mary and Polly are still synonymous 
terms among ourselves ; Polly, Molly, Mary, Maria, 
and Moll, each alike signifying the lady or mistress of 
the sea. 

And why had we no mention of her before, when 
the children of Israel were in Egypt ? Why, but be- 
cause the stars, of which she takes the lead, were then 
below the horizon ; and she must necessarily come up 
first, for them to follow. 

And why is she a prophetess (JVebaiah !) ? But 
because all the planets and groups of stars are pro- 
phets and indices in turn of the stars which come after 
them : and the constellation of Venus, in the Zodiac, 
is a foreteller, in like manner as the Stars in the Earn 
are called the Rams of Nebaioth, which minister un- 
to the coming God of Day, and are therefore stars of 
augury, or divination, whose allegorical language it is 
which we read in the 60th of Isaiah, ' Arise shine, for 
thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord (that is, 
the brightness of the Sun) is risen upon thee.' 

And who is this 'horse and his rider,' whom this 
Lady Mary is so pleased to have ' thrown into 
the sea ?' See ye not there, in the Sagittarius of No- 
vember, that very 'horse and his rider,' who must ne- 
cessarily sink into the sea, when the Lord triumphs 

17* 



394 ASTRONOMICOTHEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

gloriously — that is, when the Sun shines brightly; 
and in bringing up the children of Israel into the re- 
gions of long days and summer months, throws ' the 
horse and his rider' (the gloomy genius of November) 
below the horizon ? For had there been any real 
drowning of a real army in a real sea, that army must 
have consisted of many horses and riders ; and the 
singular number and the definite article, ' the horse 
and his rider,' would have been a very feeble synecdo- 
che for the greatness of the triumph. 

Nor, if there had been any intended historical con- 
gruity in its being an Egyptian army, could there have 
been any horse at all thrown into the sea ; for sure we 
shouldn't forget our lesson so fast, as not to remember 
that all the horses in Egypt had just before died of 
the murrain. And it must have been rather hard to 
kill 'em first and drown 'em afterwards. 

So woefully bestead are they who would attempt 
to make a history of an allegory, and to represent the 
sublime machinery of astronomical science as a detail 
of real occurrences. 

But the Lady Mary joins with her brother Aaron in a 
sedition against Moses, because of the Ethiopian woman 
whom he had married. Of which enigma, the solution is 
a reference to an union, or adoption of the Indian my- 
thology, into the Coptic, or Egyptian Exode, — Ethi- 
opia being the theological name of India. 

On this occasion, we read, that ' the Lord came 
down from heaven in the pillar of a cloud, and stood 
in the door of the tabernacle, — and his wrath was kin- 
dled against Aaron, and against his sister Miriam, to 
such an extent that he smote the young lady with a 
leprosy, and she became leprous white as snow, even 
as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed, and 
insisted that she should be shut out of the camp seven 
days.' (Numbers, 12.) 

Now, Sirs, see I beseech you the injustice ; see 



MIRIAM. 395 

the oppressive tyranny and cruelty of your ministers 
and preachers of the gospel, and say if any Pharaohs, 
Neros, or despots of kingly name ever held men's bo- 
dies in so grievous a bondage as these priestly tyrants 
would impose upon our minds. They foist on us what 
is in the letter the grossest trash and sheerest idiotcy 
that ever was in the world, as the word of God ; and 
when we quote it in the most respectful manner, they 
feel that that quotation of itself is a sarcasm, and that 
to treat it any way is to treat it irreverently. These 
filthy spurcities, these atrocious follies, from which the 
mind of an innocent child, if not held down by autho- 
rity, would turn with contempt, and cry SAame ! 
Shame ! are the text, the literal text, of your holy 
Bible, your word of God, of which a thousand evange- 
lical dunces, not knowing a word of the original text, 
nor ever exercising the faculty of guessing at its mean- 
ing, will sing me that pretty madhouse melody : 

" Should earth, or hell, or men, or fiends, 
Against my faith combine ; 
I'd clasp the Bible to my heart, 
Convinc'd it is divine." 

But can they tell the meaning of it ? They can- 
not. Can their Christian ministers instruct them ? 
They cannot ; for they do not know themselves ; and 
therefore, with that united cunning and cruelty which 
ever characterizes priestcraft, they endeavor to raise 
the general squeal among the savages, against the 
learning with which they cannot compete, and the su- 
perior honesty which would employ that learning to 
unravel the mystery of antiquity, to free them from 
the yoke of ignorance, and tame the fierce barbarians 
into men. 

But how beautiful — how charming is science ! how 
delightful are the investigations of the occult treasures 
of ancient learning — how irresistible the conviction 



396 ASTRONOMICO- THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

which still progressing evidence forces upon us, in the 
course of these sacred studies. 

It is not the common people whom I address, or whom- 
I wish to address. It is those alone who love knowl- 
edge, who follow reason as the supreme guide, and 
seek truth as the great end, to whom I appeal. 

" Ye generous few who love this sacred shade, 
How rich a scene is to your view displayed ; 
Knowledge for you unlocks her classic page, 
And virtue blossoms for a better age." 

Ye have seen each person of the eternal trinity, 
Adam, Eve, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, the Patriarchs, 
Moses, Aaron, each falling into their exact astronomi- 
cal relations. 

And now! the planet Venus, whose domicile is in 
the pavilion of the Zodiacal Bull of April, whose very 
name was Mary, as that name signifies, sprang from 
the froth of the sea, presents the solution of the leprous 
whiteness that covered the beautiful form of Miriam, 
and of the sea from which she sprang, her father, 
Neptune, seeming to throw up his froth, or spitting in 
her face. When she arises as the planet Venus, in 
her domicile of April, out of the sea, her direct adver- 
sary, the horse and his rider, of the gloomy month 01 
November, is thrown into the sea, as a necessary con- 
sequence, on the opposite side. 

•jwa ^ the Sea of Surph ! As in the Pagan alle- 
gory, it was the month of April when Venus rose out 
of the waves, and landed in her favorite island of Cy- 
prus, from whence she was caught up into heaven. 

Thus every island had its Venus Anaduomene, 
sea-born goddess, or tutelary saint, imagined to have 
sprung out of the main, to be its protecting or guar- 
dian genius. 

And thus our own most popular British air is but 



MIKIAM. 397 

a version of the song of the Egyptian Miriam and the 
Cyprian Venus. For — 

" When Britain first, at heaven's command, 

Arose from out the azure main, 
This was the charter — the charter of the land ; 

And guardian angejs sung this strain : 
Rule, Britannia ! Britannia rule the waves ! 

And thus like Miriam, Venus, and Britannia, — 
the song, the songstress, and the occasion of the song, 
are all a fiction, the mere creation of a poet's fancy, as 
e'en thus. • The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, 
doth glance from earth to heaven, from heaven to 
earth.' And as imagination bodied forth the ■ forms of 
things unknown,' the poets' pen turned them to shape, 
and ' gave to airy nothing a local habitation and a 
name.' 

And hence (as the fabulous history of the church 
on earth was devised upon the plan of a picture in 
words, of the phenomena of the visible heavens) you 
have the idea of eternal persecutions, or following s of 
one sign or star after another, which is the significa- 
tion of that word, presented to you in the wordy pic- 
ture, or fabulous allegory, answering exactly, and even 
to the most extraordinary minuteness, to the celestial 
original. As they go up on one side, their adversaries, 
the opposite signs, must go down on the other. They 
are eternally pursuing, but never overtaking each 
other. 

Hence the meaning of those mystical words of the 
apostle, 'yea, and all that will live godly in Christ 
Jesus, shall suffer persecution,' as to be sure they 
must : ' they fall successive, and successive rise.' 

And this same Venus, who is triumphing over the 
horse and his rider in her Exodus, or coming out of 
Egypt, will be in turn persecuted by the great red 
dragon, Sagittarius, or Serpentarius, for they are one 
and the same ; and ' the string of his bow hath he 



398 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

made ready against her.' But she will be caught up 
with her man child into heaven, and so neither he nor 
she be any the worse for such a persecution. 

But when the woman, who, as the planet Venus, 
had been a wanderer (as that word signifies), was 
caught up into heaven, even to the throne of God, of 
course she became fixed, — she was settled for life. 
And there is that same eternal Venus fixed forever in 
the Virgin of August. Of which astronomical sense, 
the allegorical enigma is that which we read in the 20th 
chapter of Numbers — that is, in the 20th lesson of 
allegorical arithmetic, where you read that l Miriam 
died in Kadesh, and was buried there.' While it does 
well enough to sound on the uncurious and uncritical 
ear, as if Kadesh was the name of a place, and as if 
Miriam died in Kadesh, or in Kadesh- Barnea, had 
meant no more than as if she had been a real person 
who had really died in a place of as real a geography 
as our Spitalfields or Smithfield. But it makes a lit- 
tle difference when the innumerable other astronomical 
indications are backed by the criticism which discov- 
ers that Kadesh, is the name for glory or brightness, 
and Kadesh-Barnea, is the brightness of corn. So that 
Miriam dying, and being buried in Kadesh-Barnea, 
is an evident enigma for the Virgin, the genius of the 
harvest month, being absorbed as she is in the bright- 
ness of the Sun, which renders even the bright star, 
or sheaf of corn in her hand, invisible. 

Which analogy is so wonderfully preserved in the 
new mystery, that St. Luke first mentions the Virgin 
Mary by express association, as a Virgin in the sixth 
month, which, reckoning March as the first month, can 
be none other than the Virgin of August, who, when 
the Angel Gabriel paid his addresses to her, was found 
at home (as she always will be found) in the sixth 
month. While her husband, Joseph, To sepe — that 
is, the manger of Io, which is in the stable of Augeas, 



MIKIAM. 399 

on the 25th of December, is expressly declared to be 
(the Son) of Heli, which is literally (the Son) of the 
Sun ; Jesus being, as was supposed, says the evange- 
list — that is, all this allegory was supposed or ima- 
gined merely, — Jesus being, as was supposed, the Son 
of lo sepe, wc evo^ero. While the Virgin is still 
more astronomically defined by Matthew, as being 
the Virgin of Bethlehem, which is the House of 
Bread, a direct definition of the pavilion of the Virgin 
of August. 

Now, sirs, resist this demonstration who can, it 
is no less than mathematical demonstration. Turn 
to your almanac, turn to your calendar by which you 
find the lessons in your Prayer Book, and you rind 
that there, even there, your Christian chronologers 
have fixed the 15th of August as the sacred festival 
of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, or taking 
up of the Virgin into heaven. It ever having been a 
tradition, that the Virgin Mother of Grod never died, 
but shared with Enoch and Elijah the honor of being- 
translated or assumed, and taken up into heaven. As 
in the Liturgy of the Catholic church for that day 
are the words, " This day the Virgin Mary ascended 
the heavens. Rejoice ye, for she reigns with Christ 
for ever. The Virgin Mary is taken up into the 
heavenly chamber in which the King of Kings sits in 
his starry seat. That very 15th of August, in the 
Roman Calendar of Columella, is the very crisis of the 
disappearance or evanescence of the Virgin of the Zo- 
diac. That very 15th of August is the day which the 
ancient Greeks fixed as the day of the Assumption of 
their blessed Virgin Astrea. And the seven days 
during which Miriam was shut up, and not allowed to 
show her leprous face in the camp of Israel, is precisely 
the length of time during which the Virgin of the Zo- 
diac, absorbed in the effulgence of the JSun's rays, as 
he is passing through her, is shut up, so as to be 



400 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

rendered wholly invisible in the camp of heaven.* 
But it is three weeks before the Sun appears to 
have made sufficient progress to suffer the stars which 
form the constellation again to become visible to the 
naked eye, — and just at the end of that three weeks, 
when her beautiful head is seen on the other side 
emerging out of the Sun's rays, have your Christian 
Almanacs fixed the festival of the nativity of the blessed 
Virgin — that is, September 8th. 

And as she was born, I suppose she had a mother. 
Well then, her mother; the mother of the blessed Vir- 
gin ; the grandmother of Jesus Christ ? Is not that a 
question that a man may with propriety ask ? 

It is Anna ? And what is Anna ? It is the ac- 
tual feminine of the well-known word Annus, the year : 
and thus the Virgin Mary is proved to be none other 
than the Virgin of the Zodiac, which is " the Daugh- 
ter of the year ;" and Anna has the festival of he * na- 
tivity fixed on the very day when the ancient year of 
the Egyptians was reckoned to begin. 

The Gospel of St. Luke, cautious of letting in too 
strong a light on the astronomical allegory, has not 
told us directly who the mother of the Virgin Mary 
was, but has only mentioned Anna the prophetess, 
the daughter of Phanuel — that is, of the tribe of Aser, 
when the words are translated into their meaning, 
"the year, the daughter of our shining God, in the 
constellation of Virgo." The 26th of July, our St. 
Anne's Day, being the beginning, or standing upon 
the first degree of that sign, when that point was the 
point of the Vernal Equinox : which, upon the calcula- 
tion of the motion of precession, on principles recog- 

* And hence the solution of the fable of Exodus is expressed in 
that motto of our Earls of Balcarras,, Astra, Castra, Numen, Lumen, 
the Stars, the Camp, the Sun, the God,— on the assumption, which 
all astronomers admit, that the Vernal Equinoctial point was in the 
first degree of Aries, in the year 388 before Christ. 



MIRIAM. 401 

nized by all astronomers, at seventy-one years, eight 
or nine months for a degree, and consequently 2160 
years for a whole sign, gives us 13,060 years, when 
St. Anne's day was the first of the Egyptian year. 
Any time in the infinite ages before which time, but 
demonstrably before which time, this allegorical al- 
manac must have been in being. And thus, while 
we are not able to say exactly how old the gospel 
is, we are able to assign a time, than which, it is 
demonstrated to be much older. It is older than 
13,060 years ago — that is, more than 11,230 years 
older than the period assigned to Christianity, and 
more than 5,393 older than the period which has 
been dreamed of as t;hat of the creation of the world 
itself. 

While our Christian chronologers have fixed the 
birth of Christ in the stable of Nazareth, at the very 
day, — nay, to the very minute, 4o the accuracy of the 
setting of a chronometer, to that minute of midnight, 
between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, — when, 
for the same reason, the ancient Egyptians fixed the 
birth of their God Osiris, the Persians that of their 
God Mythra, the Greeks that of Bacchus — that is, 
when the Sun, having passed his lowest point of 
declension at the winter solstice, enters the first degree 
of Capricornus, the Goat ; where, exactly in the vis- 
ible heavens is the stable of Augeas, in which he is 
said to be born, at the moment when the middle of 
the Virgin was on the eastern border of the horizon, 
which constellation was therefore said to be his mother. 
As in the meditation of the third mystery of the Ro- 
sary, are these words : * Let us contemplate how the 
blessed Virgin Mary, when the time of her delivery 
was come, brought forth our Redeemer, Christ Jesus, 
at midnight, and laid him in a manger.' As Justin 
Martyr boasts that Christ was born on the day when 
the Sun takes its birth in the stable of Augeas — that 



402 ASTKONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTUEES. 

is, in the station of the celestial Goat, where the sta- 
ble of Augeas is found in the Sixth Labor of Hercu- 
les. And Albert the Great is great in his admission : — 
We know that the sign of the celestial Virgin did come 
to the horizon at the moment where we have fixed the 
birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. All the mysteries of 
his divine incarnation, and all the secrets of his mar- 
vellous life, from his conception to his ascension, are 
to be found in the constellations, and are figured in the 
stars. 

But the famous picture of the Marine Venus, ad- 
mitted to have been the finest work of art which the 
world had ever seen, the work of Apelles, in the ex- 
ecution of which, that artist is said to have used his 
mistress Campaspe for his model, who had been given 
him by Alexander the Great, came at length into the 
possession of the Roman Emperor, Augustus, who 
placed it in the Temple of his God. 

And thus have we the Augustan era, as the supposed 
epoch of the origin of Christianity, when art lent its 
aid to superstition : and the beautiful Virgo Marina 
became the no less beautiful Virgin Mary, the genius 
of the month which derives its name from Augustus. 
That the Virgin Mary, the planet Venus, and the Vir- 
gin of the Zodiac, are absolutely the same, and conse- 
quently that Jesus Christ, the Son of the Virgin Mary, 
is none other than the same kind of allegorical and 
imaginary figment, as they were, is demonstrable from 
the absolute identity of all the epithets and doxolo- 
gies, prayers and praises ascribed to Venus in the 
Pagan, and to Mary in the Christian theology. 

And not alone to Venus, but to Adonis, the well- 
known paramour of Venus, in the mythology, are the 
prayers of the Christian church, under that very name 
Adonai (which only differs from Adonis by the addi- 
tion of the pronoun suffix, which makes it our Ado- 
nis), to this day addressed. The collect for the 18th 



MIRIAM. 403 

of December is : ' O Adonai, come and redeem us with 
an out-stretched arm.' 

The only difference between Christians and Pa- 
gans being, that the Pagans had some sense, and kept 
in view the sublime physical science, in the words 
which they used : they knew, and they could tell the 
meaning : while Christians U3e even the very same 
words, and have no meaning at all for them. 

Though we read in the Old Testament the most 
terrible denunciations of God's wrath against those 
idolators who worshipped the Queen of Heaven, (Je- 
remiah, 44), by whom all agree to have been meant 
none other than the planet Venus, or the first constel- 
lation of the Zodiacal Virgin, yet have the very words, 
epithets, titles, attributes of this Queen of Heaven 
been adopted into our Christian liturgies. 

I repeat, you know, the hymn of the Pagan Lucre- 
tius to the Cyprian Goddess, in juxtaposition with the 
hymn to this day retained in the Litany of the blessed 
Virgin Mary. And if there be a difference, the 
wit of man is yet unborn that can show what that 
difference is : 

" thou, from whom the JEneadae arose, 
Source of delight, the joy of God and men, 
Bright Venus ! thy imperial sway extends 
O'er the wide seas, and all the expanded fields 
Of teeming nature. By thy- power of old, 
The various tribes that rove the realms below 
Issued to life, and filled the vacant world. 
lovely Queen of Heaven ! at thy command 
The whirlwinds die away, the storm is still ; 
And the big clouds dissolved in limpid air, 
To thee we owe the beauties of the field, 
And Earth's rich produce. At thy mild approach 
The dimpling waves put on a thousand smiles, 
The sky no longer lowers ; but calm and clear 
Spreads its pure azure to the world's extreme." 

But such were the forms of Pagan piety. 

And where is the difference ; where, I pray, the 



404 ASTEONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

shadow of a difference ? when, in ten thousand Chris- 
tian churches throughout all Christendom, you shall 
hear them in the holy office of the Virgin, to this day, 
thus addressing our Christian Yenus : 

' O holy Mary, mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
queen of heaven, and lady of the world, Virgin most 
miraculously fruitful. Hail star of the sea — morning 
star! 

" Bright Mother of our Maker, hail ! 
Thou Virgin ever blast, 
The Ocean star, by which we sail, 
And gain the port of rest. 

Hail, lady of the world, 

Of heaven bright queen ; 
Hail Virgin of Virgins, 

Star early seen. 

Hail flourishing Virgin. 

Chastity's renown ; 
Queen of clemency, 

Whom stars do crown. 

Mother of grace, hope 

To the dismay'd ; 
Bright star of the sea, 

In shipwreck's aid." 

And then follow the ejaculations — 

" lady, hear our prayer, 
And let our cry come unto thee !" 

Or, if words can be clearer : 

" JSail, Virgin most prudent, 
House for God placed, 
With the sevenfold pillar, 
And the table graced. 

Saved from contagion 

Of the frail earth 
In the womb of thy parent, 

Saint before birth. 

Mother of the living, 
Gate of Saint's merits, 



MIRIAM. 405 

The new state of Jacob, 
Queen of pure spirits. 

To Zebulon, fearful 

Armies array ; 
Be thou of Christians, 

Eefuge and stay." 

And there is that Virgin, which literally is the 
domicile, or house, placed for the reception of the Sun, 
whose summer seat it is. 

And even there, in that tabernacle of the Sun, is 
that beautiful furniture, the sevenfold pillar and the ta- 
ble ; and that constellation, known to the Phoenician 
and the Hebrews, under the name of Succoth Benoth, 
or tabernacle of the girls, was softened in the Greek 
utterance into Succoth Venus, or pavilion of Venus. 

And thus have we a clear and intelligible explana- 
tion, where none of your Christian teachers can give 
any explanation of those words of the angel of St. 
John, in the 21st of the Revelation : * Come up hither, 
and I will show thee the Bride, the Lamb's Wife!' 
as any astronomer can say the same as well as he : 
" Come up hither, and /will show thee the Bride, the 
Lamb's Wife ! " There she is Myrrha, the daughter of Am- 
nion, daughter, mother, and wife too. And there is her 
woollyheaded husband, him of whom the same St. John 
instructs us, that 'the hair of his head was like wool,' 
as I suppose the hair upon a lamb's head is in gene- 
ral very much like wool. 

But where was it thaj; the inspired apostle saw 
this Lamb, and the Lamb's wife ? He tells you, 
' from the top of a great and high mountain,' the most 
convenient for making astronomical observations : and 
then explicitly defines them in that great heavenly 
city, the Zodiacal band, which had twelve gates, or 
twelve great entrances, and names written thereon, 
which are the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, as 
those twelve names really are the names of the twelve 
signs of the Zodiac. And the wall that surrounded 



6 - & I I **> 

t 

-a 

406 ASTRONOMICO-THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. 

the city had twelve foundations, and in them the 
names of twelve apostles of the Lamb ; which again, 
not only in number, but in character, answer to the 
twelve signs of the Zodiac. Of which, the 6th, or 
harvest month, called by our Catholic brethren, the 
gate of the Saint's Merits, is yielded to the miracu- 
lously fruitful Virgin, which was never any other than 
the Virgin of the Zodiac. 

But if any of you should ever visit Paris, and will 
be at the pains to look on the architecture of the 
church of Notre Dame, dedicated to the honor of the 
mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, you shall see in 
characters, which you must shut your eyes not to see, 
and renounce the faculty of understanding to avoid 
understanding, that that Notre Dame, that Virgin 
Mary, to whom the church is dedicated, is, and was, 
and never meant any other than the Virgin of the 
Zodiac. For there, over the great gate which presents 
itself on the left, as you enter at the north, is carved 
the twelve signs of the Zodiac, from among which, the 
6th, or sign of the Virgin, is thrown out, and its space 
occupied by the figure of the statuary who erected the 
building, and the Virgin set above them all, as the 
Goddess to whom the edifice is dedicated. And if 
such were the nature of the mother, such must have 
been that of the son, and such also that of the whole 
twelve apostles. Heaven and earth, and all the bright 
squadrons of the twinkling night, bear witness ; and 
the Sun himself, the glorious King of Day, evidences 
the fact. 



THE END. 






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